Biles Bilinski, Agent of SHIELD
by Paradoqz
Summary: There's more to life than Beacon Hills
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: Biles Bilinski, Agent of SHIELD

AUTHOR: Doqz

FANDOM: Teen Wolf/ The Avengers

ARCHIVE: Please ask.

DISCLAIMER: Main characters mentioned belong to someone else . No profit is being made.

After dodging werewolves and Hunters for much of his high school career, and briefly being a dragon in college (he doesn't like to talk about it), Stiles's tenure as a SHIELD intern is satisfactorily anticlimactic.

For a while anyway.

Weapons cages, paperwork, coffee runs. Research.

It's nice.

Restful.

Alas, the good things never last in Stiles's life. Eventually he does get noticed, because despite the lack of formal training (unlike most of his recruitment class) he is a veteran of a war that is much closer to the one that the Directorate fights than any other. Not a whole lot rattles Stiles much anymore.

He doesn't grok the importance of that at first. But it gets noticed when he's doesn't stop telling a ridiculous joke when a winged, sword-wielding centaur hooves it through the door, chased by a hurried looking maintenance crew.

When asked later he shrugs and says that tripping the horse-dude seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Stiles is also unique in being utterly disinterested in being transferred into the support echelon of the Avengers' Initiative. He's done his time as the cheerleader for the not-quite-ubermenschen, he's good. He does trade in a few favors (the currency that runs the SHIELD, much as is the case with any bureaucracy), to get one of Hawkeye's bows for Allie and Rogers' autograph for Dad.

That's as close as he wants to get to the whole thing, really.

Which, of course, makes the eventual call into Coulson's office pretty much inevitable.

The Luck of the Stilinkis. If it weren't for bad, they'd have none at all.

"They call me their babysitter. Which is insulting to pretty much everyone, on every level." Coulson walked purposefully with a long stride of a man perpetually out of time, negotiating the maze of corridors with the unerring familiarity, not bothering to see if Stiles was keeping up. "More importantly - it shows total misunderstanding of the situation."

"We are not here- don't wince, you are 'we' provisionally. Chin up, you may not last a day. Wouldn't be the first time. We are not here to babysit them. Individually every one of them is at least twice as smart as you. Collectively they are plain dangerous. Sometimes crazy as a box of ferrets, especially if there hasn't been a mission for a while."

Coulson's face tightened a little. "Last time they felt restless Stark had Banner help him redesign the training program. The Avengers felt that SHIELD was being unrealistically soft in its conditioning demands on its personnel, thus putting both said personnel and the Avengers at risk, during the real-life situations that both were expected to tackle together."

Stiles nodded, jerkily. That particular story had passed into the institutional hushed-whisper mythology with record speed.

"Those two moro- most highly regarded scientific minds of the century solicited tactical advice from those on the team with combat experience and used Thor as the template for the threat matrix."

The popularity of the training regimen had actually skyrocketed, from what Stiles had gleaned in the stats. Rigby Fallon totally geeked out at him. Said it made Mass Effect look like Doom. Went on for hours about the hard-light holograms.

... well, it felt like hours anyway.

"We are still dealing with the short-staffing issue," Coulson grated. "And the DOD is not entirely satisfied with the deeply invasive forensic accounting inspection they launched. I believe the quote from the report remarked that it 'strains credulity to ascribe this sudden jump in medical expenses to a glorified video game'."

Coulson stopped suddenly and cocked his head at Stiles. "Remember this for future reference. This is important."

"Yes, sir?"

"Director Fury truly dislikes being accused of embezzling governmental funds for black bag operations. Especially when he is innocent."

Rigby had also said that under the face of a retarded poodle Hawkeye had a pretty decent ear for dialogue and plotting. And Widow reminded him of a GM that ran his DnD game in high school.

"Lasted three years," Fallon said dreamily. "I was an alcoholic elf-thief with a penchant for humping unwilling livestock. Chaotic good was never this disturbing, man! The work I put into the character development of that guy. Man - he was a thing of beauty. We fought through 3 continents and besieged the fucking Citadel of Evil! Good times."

Stiles knew a punch line work-up when he was being fed one and had just raised an inquiring eyebrow. Rigby, denied satisfaction, sniffed and finished the story abruptly with "Rocks fall, everyone dies."

Stiles had nodded understandingly which had only pissed off Fallon more. "You still don't get it, dude! It was a fucking abattoir in there. She created 13 levels worth of kamikaze missions and genocide! Apparently Ms. Commie took writing lessons from fucking GRRM or something. She doesn't believe in win scenarios! Winter is not coming - it fucking lived in that game and made us its bitch! And then it made ugly winter-babies and armed them with bio-weapons!"

He'd paused, briefly out of breath, grasped Stiles by both shoulders, stared him directly in the eyes and sighed longingly. "I'm gonna marry that woman one day..."

Then there was a discreet cough from behind the shelves and the Captain walked past them, determinedly engrossed in an upside down manual for installing a Samsung 46-incher.

Rigby'd remembered that he had urgently needed to be away at that point, for some reason.

Creepy day.

"The moral being," Coulsin said primly "Mr. Stilinski, is that you need to rapidly divest yourself of the camaraderie-building bullshit notions you may have picked up. You are not here to protect the exotic yet charmingly dysfunctional Avengers from the big bad world. You are here to protect the big bad world from them. To the extent possible."


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles likes it in the Avengers' Mansion. He still doesn't understand how something the size of a small spaceship, with most of it going lengthwise, qualifies as a mansion, but he likes it.

Possibly because underneath the skin this is still Stark Tower, and the man's mark defines the place.

It's pretty much anti-SHIELD. They let you wear jeans if you want. And actively discourage the uniform. It's not that Stiles doesn't like the uniform (he doesn't) it's just confusing. They are supposed to be a spy agency, right? Doesn't having an easily identifiable marker of identity and allegiance kind of defeats the purpose?

Coulson's face got really tight and he said something about the Helicarrier, and military vessels, and need for authority hierarchy. Which reminded Stiles of another thing he was puzzling over - shouldn't an Air Force crew of some sort do the actual running of the carrier? Until they are in the water and then it'd probably be better for the Navy to take over?

So Stiles spends a lot of time in the Mansion now.

He chooses to believe that it's because he gave a lot of valuable input and Coulson just needs some alone time to put it all together.

He explains it all to Pepper, before he knows she's Pepper. He doesn't bother articulating that little horrifying moment to people anymore. It wasn't his FAULT!

But, on the bright side, there are cookies now. And she warns him about the top five floors. Useful fucking data.

Mostly he likes the Mansion because it's not regimented. SHIELD is busy, all the time. There's always something to deal with. But it's a bureaucracy, there are rules and systems and schedules. So inevitably there's a lot of 'hurry up and wait' moments.

Those are bad. Those are when you start thinking and worrying and hating yourself for both and trying not to think and eventually you go crazy and commit an ugly suicide by Fury, or something.

In the Mansion there's also always something to do. But, unlike the rest of Stark's Empire, the place is only 50/50 under Pepper's control (12/88, in fact, according to some arcane calculation that she finds hilarious for some reason) and so it's 50% (88%?) pure anarchy and perennial countdown to another explosion.

It's a lot harder for the his head to find the moments in there, to stop and *think* and drag him back to Beacon Hills, to give rein to the habit of years to play Daddy to what seems like an entire town.

He tries not to think about the idea that he likes the Mansion because it reminds him of the Hills, but now the grownups are actually in charge.

Even if they do set the top floors of the place on fire with metronomically alarming regularity.


	3. Chapter 3

Everybody who is not engaged in some sort of theater of the official deas with SHIELD as an incomprehensible rat-fuck of 3 ever-competing branches: The Costumes, the Suits and the Uniforms.

The rivalry between the three is fierce and, from what Stiles has been able to understand via the judicious eavesdropping on the Powers That Be, at least slightly encouraged.

The HYDRA, and the AIM. and the Hand may all whine about SHIELD's electronic surveillance extravaganza being an unfair, unmanly and generally unpleasant advantage. The CIA and MI-6 may sneer that it's easy to get the cool toys when you got Stark Industries on speed dial. None of them realize that the true engine of the Directorate persistent ingenuity in all things voyeuristic is due, in a depressingly large part, to the internal competition. The budget battles are fought with data, and data is acquired by any and all means necessary.

There is no Geneva Convention when it comes to figuring out how to keep the Helicarrier afloat for another month.

That quiet and quietly vicious war is one of the moments where the Uniforms can more than hold their own. The crew and the garrison of the SHIELD's floating HQ are the peons of the system. They don't like to admit it, but it's clearly true. They get the short end of a fairly smelly stick.

They do the logistics, the procurement, and the paperwork. They carry the Strike Force (mockingly described by the entirely over-educated population of the Directorate as the Praetorians) which barely gets to see any action - when the operations of a clandestine organization headed by Fury go loud, you usually end up sending the Marines (or Thor) in, not the Strike Force.

The Helicarrier is where the bosses live, so the crew also gets the spillover bullshit from the political spats.

And, to add insult to injury, not only do they get to spend most of their life on board of a flying deathtrap, they don't even get to use their ridiculous uniforms to get laid. Wearing them in public is strictly verboten.

The official reason being that the Helicarrier is classified as an object of national security, and its crew as an elite Special Operations unit. Confidentiality pertaining to their identities is the first line of defense against infiltration and sabotage.

Having learned his lesson, Stiles avoids bringing up the logic problem inherent in the proposition. Clearly there are still some bugs in the system since the biggest crises of the last few decades are all jumped off by the spectacularly successful acts of infiltration and sabotage of SHIELD's headquarters.

In fact, an unbiased reading of the documents seems to indicate that the only way to remain ignorant of the HQ's location is to remain a particularly dense civilian. As soon as one as much as considers doing something nefarious (like maybe leaving a kitten up a tree), one would immediately get an email with the exact coordinates of the Helicarrier and a list of the most easily corruptible agents.

"Maybe if we let them wear uniforms on shore-leave they'd be harder to suborn," Stiles offers helpfully to Coulson. (Well, he avoids bringing it up for a while. For God's sake he is only human!)

Anyway, being at the Mansion for another long stretch gives him the time to observe the other two branches close up.

The Costumes are the jocks and the cheerleaders of the Directorate's incestuous little high-school world. They are the elite. As well they have to be - to pull off their truly retarded outfits.

Also - they all seem to hate the sleeves with a passion of a tailor who has watched his parents be killed by a sleeve in front of him in a circus as a small child. And whose wife later ran off with a sleeve. And whose dog was eaten by a-.

They really fucking hate sleeves, is essentially Stiles's point.

He supposes it is more economical in the long run. Presumably Derek and Scott are still racking up their Old Navy bills back home, with their shirt-ripping extravaganza. Seriously - you got abs. We all get it, already. Get a pair of stretchy pants and settle the shit down, you Chippendale Freakshow.

Stiles is still quietly yet fiercely proud of getting them all matching mumus for that one Christmas.

Only Erica laughs though...

Anyway. The Costumes are the tip of the spear. And as such, arrogant pricks all, almost without an exception. Each and every one raring to be the next Hawkeye or Widow, or already convinced that they are better and it's only the Boss's fondness for his pets that's keeping the truly deserving from replacing the Budapest Twins (if he hears that story one more time he is going to stab somebody) on the Avengers' roster.

In a nutshell, the Costumes are SHIELD's version of Lydia.

Nobody likes the Costumes very much.

Coulson is a Suit. Possibly the Suitest Suit who ever Suited. Everything you need to know about them you can figure out by watching him.

When Stiles grows up he is going to be Coulson.

Only with hair.

And a sex life.

The Suits are the grunts, the bedrock, and the soul of SHIELD. They are the ones making the deals in the favelas of Rio, and James Bonding in the shiny towers of Hong Kong. They are the one who carve out SHIELD's place in the chaotic free-for-all of the alphabet-soup agencies and organizations, in the vicious and bloody days that herald the birth of the monster of the family.

Picked and drawn by the arcane system fully comprehensible only to Fury and Carla, the come from everywhere and comprise possibly the most odd-ball collection of operatives ever assembled under one roof. Adventurers and cowards, rebels and martinets, free spirits and accountants, FBI agents and dishonored cops, teenage hackers and retired gator hunters - you can find anyone behind the blandly chameleon shroud of the Suit.

The Suits, in short, are the shit.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles leaves when he figures out that Derek is training Scott to become the Alpha. Having that realization blossom like a nuclear explosion somewhere behind his eyes is the last straw. He wakes up that morning and lies quietly in his bed, his fingers interlaced behind his head, contemplating yet another day of crises and petty bullshit, of lying to Dad, of pretending to be just another teenager, another day of the pack and Scott becoming, and now also of watching Derek preparing him to take the throne.

SHIELD's therapists are second to none. They have to be, of course. So it isn't their fault. Stiles simply has never been able to take that entire profession seriously. If he'd wanted somebody to feel sorry for him and agree that the entire world was against him and commiserate how hard and unfair it all is - he'd have been born Jackson.

The shrinks don't do much to help him deal with Mom's death. He works through it on his own. True, he doesn't really give them much of a chance, but the end result is the same. He makes it through. He and Dad. By themselves. Even Scott hasn't known about the panic attacks.

Nothing else is ever going to be harder, so who needs the diplomaed frauds, anyway.

Maybe it's an issue of trust. Ever since the school counselor tried to murder them all, he's been a little guarded.

Maybe not.

It doesn't really matter.

He goes to all the sessions and even tries (honestly tries) to keep the smart-assery at bay. None of them really get a handle on him, as far as he can tell. Which doesn't do much for his regard of their vocational choice.

One of the reasons Stiles feels at home at the Directorate is because it is a refuge for broken toys. Broken but functional.

You can't be normal and do the job. All you can, all you must, do is keep the crazy out of sight or, preferably, turn it into something useful.

Exhibit A: Widow, Black.

Exhibit B-Z: Everyone else on the fucking payroll.

By the time Stiles runs away to the university, his Dad suspects and/or knows enough not to put up a lot of fuss. When they say good bye, Stiles suddenly notices the gray in the hair and the gauntness in the face, the stooped shoulders, the crow's feet. All the details come together with vivid clarity and punch him with the obvious, clichéd, terrifying realization of Dad's mortality.

But he still has to go. He has to go, or stay and go insane, lose it completely. If he sticks around Beacon Hills, if he follows through with their and Scott's old plans of going to State, if he doesn't get out here and now - he'll break. Loudly and all over the place.

And so Stiles slinks away, avoiding some sort of ridiculous scene or a dramatic high-schoolery kabuki of farewell and tearful promises of reunion and eternal friendship. Surreally, considering the beginning of their freaky little fairy tale, only Allie and her father catch him on his way out and do the awkward dance he's been trying to avoid.

Well. Allison does. Mr. Argent just throws a GoTH bag at his face and growls something about Stanford being lousy with the monsters. As it turns out (disappointingly) the bag's name has nothing to do with dressing like Vampire Lestat and instead stands for Go To Hell. And, inevitably, things do and the stuff in it turns out to be horribly (in all senses of the word) useful. And, in fact, indirectly leads to Stiles being recruited by SHIELD, in the fullness of time.

None of this is apparent as he drives out of Hills, trying desperately to hang on to his Stilesness, and to generally keep his shit together.

He breaks anyway. But it's a controlled explosion by then, and he has enough experience at masking the terrifying and the mundane that it is no big chore for him to play it off as the usual nervous collapse of a small town freshman overwhelmed by the big, bad university.

He breaks, and then rebuilds himself, brick by brick, from the ground up, carefully searching for a new center and an old self.

It may be inevitable, Stiles thinks detachedly from time to time, that he will return to Beacon Hills one day. Not to the place, perhaps. But to that which matters.

Too many secrets, too many bonds, too much blood ties him to the people, to his pack. But if, or when, he does - he has to be stronger than when he left. And if the Gods are kind, for once, he will be strong enough, and in time enough, to prevent Scott from having to tear Derek's throat out.

It is not a dramatic break. He writes, they call. Erica sends him links to the best (and sometimes distressingly disturbing) porn. Stiles sends her notes on how to kill a chimera.

Lydia and Jackson visit his sophomore year, raising his status on campus by at least 15%.

Allie, Danny and Erica drive up a few months after, and fairly regularly after that, occasionally bringing Isaac, and often Boyd. Their visits only sometimes resulting in significant property damage.

He wouldn't see Scott for half a decade.

But blood will always out in the end.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles is not entirely sure what he's supposed to do so he does the crazy thing and asks. Coulson, on his way out and already mildly peeved by Stark placing him on hold, grimaces at him. "Just keep an eye out. If death, or property damage in excess of the usual, starts occurring - call me."

It's the fact that sentences like that don't bother him very much, that bothers Stiles a lot these days. But it's a balmy 100% day in the Big Apple and he's trapped in a gym (that smells like an NYC gym in a 100% heat would), with one of the more unbalanced members of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Stiles's had worse days.

Which, in and of itself, is also very, very depressing.

Everyone who has had the dubious honor of ending up on Coulson's short list of substitutes, for the moments when he himself is required to be in at least two other places at the same time, has their own hierarchy of ugly.

They all agree that the Avengers are ten pounds of crazy in a three-ounce bag. That's so obviously indisputable that even Coulson admits it.

Probably.

On the inside.

But everybody has their own gradation metrics. This is useful. It makes their little clique (Stiles is still coming to terms that he's apparently part of the cool kids table now) run pretty smoothly. Couslon understands the realities of life in the fast lane and tends to close his eyes to the little chore/schedule and favor trading as long as the job gets done.

Some things are universal - nobody wants to be on Banner duty. Ever.

Which is incredibly dumb of them and makes Stiles very popular. After an appropriate show of reluctance, martyrdom and following the increasingly elaborate rituals of begging, seduction and bribery he's occasionally willing to take that spot.

What the rest of the pac- what the rest of them have failed to realize yet is that, most of the time, where there's Banner - there's Stark.

Of course the smarter people understand that correlation perfectly well. They also figure out, however, that even though the Hulk is unlikely to bust out when Stark is around to distract his host - Banner and Tony are easily as destructive in their own right.

Certainly to people's career prospects, is the common consensus.

Which is fair.

But Stiles has long ago understood the intellectual bankruptcy of playing fair. Or having a shred of pride and/or dignity. He has zero problems with snitching to Pepper as soon as things begin to look like they are getting to the point of 'property damage in the excess of the usual.'

Stark doesn't like him very much and calls him 'that squirrely guy.'

That's all right.

There are cookies.

Still, to be safe, Stiles has been steadily minimizing the presence of networkable electronics in his life. The Iron Man has the sense of humor of a 12 year old, and the vindictiveness of Mrs. Argent.

No sense in taking chances.

The point being, that even with the cookies, it is still a chore getting the Stark-Banner shift.

The Captain rotation is nice. The biggest problem there is figuring out the moment of Rogers getting into one of his moods, when he periodically decides that Stark's been getting a little to much attention, while he is being treated like a dependable old uncle.

It's never public, he seldom takes it outside the 'family' - but within his self-imposed constraints he can be quite mercilessly vicious. Absolutely nobody wants the repetition of the Showers Incident.

What amazes Stiles is that even after that, people are still willing to buy into the whole 'awe shucks, what does that thingamabob in my kitchen do again?' routine.

One born every minute.

Everybody wants the Widow detail (which says unkind things about the gender disparity in SHIELD's recruitment practices) but that's a rare gig. And most of the time if you do get it, it turns into a hellish exam on surveillance of a hostile target through the urban environment.

Personally Stiles is increasingly of the opinion that Coulson only assigns them to Romanoff in order to improve their escape and evasion tactics. Certainly he's never been more versed in the wide variety of ways for a target to lose her pursuers.

Barton is generally considered to be an easy stretch. He gets it, he's been through the system, he tries not to screw with the people unless absolutely necessary.

And he seldom, if ever, turns green, grows the size of the Empire State Building, and commits mass murder. Amazing what that does to one's appreciation of a guy's personality.

Stiles absolute hates Hawkeye duty.

If there's anything he knows it's the redlining souls, the men on the line of the abyss, looking down and beginning to like what they see. And of all the Avengers, Barton is by far the closest to the edge.

It's not that Stiles is afraid of him, exactly.

Well, no more than is warranted.

And it's not that the whole bow and arrows thing reminds him of stuff he likes to deal with on his own terms.

Everything reminds him of that stuff.

It's just... it's been a long time since had to take care of a wounded wolf.

The very fact that he was even thinking that just went to show how wrong the situation was. He was a fucking intern. It wasn't his job to 'take care' of a damn Avenger!

He was going to stay by the door, wallow in the misery over having a university degree and a gun and yet still not making enough money to afford an apartment without roommates (some of them even humanoid, although both kinds had an unfortunate tendency of eating in the middle of the night and make creepy skittering noises when startled).

Hawkeye (did all the Avengers pick their nicknames when they were 14, or something?) was going to kick the crap out of some equipment and dudes with necks wider than Stiles's... Stiles.

Everybody was going to happily ignore each other.

It was going to beautiful.

It actually is. Sparring here is like free pay per view.

Manuel "Call me Danny" Vicente, the Cubano dude who runs the gym, turns out to have a file half a foot thick when SHIELD checks him out. Cap is actually the one that discovers him and eventually drags Barton with him. Variety, he tells everybody, is the spice of life.

What that actually means is that he's been hanging out with the Praetorians way too long and got hooked on the MMA. At some point, on one of his NYC walkabouts that induce funny aneurysms in Director Fury's left frontal lobe, he came across Manuel's place.

When one's preferred therapy takes form of extremely focused and applied violence, Stiles figures there are worse places than a gym ran by a defector from Dirección General de Inteligencia. He would give most of his minimum-wage paycheck to have been a fly on the wall when Coulson gave the file to Fury, though.

Anyway. Stiles has never gone for the regularized type of martial arts training, until SHIELD made him to. But he's been collecting useful tips on how not to get crotch gouged, stabbed, bitten, shot, set on fire or defenestrated since he was a sophomore. It started with Mr. Argent, and - by habit as well as necessity – he kept with it in college.

He knows enough to recognize the real deal when he sees it. Danny doesn't teach competition stuff, he doesn't train fighters to win points and work the system. He teaches what he claims to teach – self-defense. No nonsense, no frills, and 70% off crotch gouges every Saturday.

His background is Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is what probably first drew Cap here. Rogers has a solid grounding in classical boxing, which makes sense. But strength and power-striking will only take you so far, which is something he recognized quickly. Although given the retardedly weird frequency with which the Avengers end up in hand-to hand situations – he'd better have…

Barton is better rounded by far, but he likes he atmosphere. As far as Stiles can see, Danny's gym is the equivalent of a neighborhood bar, which is always on the verge of going broke because it refuses to cater to anybody but the neighborhood crowd.

It's all cops and military and the veterans of either in here. Everybody recognizes the Avengers, nobody makes a fuss.

And the smell is revolting.

Of course, it was love at first sight for those two bastards. They have a hangout separate from the Mansion and the Shield, with blood and teeth all over the floor.

Stiles has an I-Pad. It all works out.

Well apart from that first week when Danny and a few of the trainers and the black belts corner him and explain in unnecessarily graphic but very clear terms what would happen to him if any videos from the gym happen to pop up on Youtube.

They were pretty surprised when Rogers and Hawkeye told them he was with them and, also, SHIELD.

It kind of hurts Stiles's feelings actually. He was wearing a real suit that day and everything.

Anyway, the Captain is elsewhere today, the gym is mostly empty, so it's just Barton and the helpless punching bags. And Stiles. But Stiles has an I-Pad. It's all good.

It all goes bad too quickly to stop.

And he has no one to blame but himself. Coulson tells him a thousand times. You have to pay attention to the little things. Mr. Argent had told him the same - watch the eyes, watch the shoulders, watch the hips. The little things.

But he really wanted to see what the whole hoopla about Fifty Shades of Grey is about and by the time that he realizes that it is actually that bad, it's too late.

If he'd been paying attention, he would have noticed the lack of punching way earlier. There must have been other signs too. It's the little fucking things.

"Hey! Intern. Get in here."

That's all bad. There's no good here. The intern doesn't want to get in there. There's no good there. The intern should have worn a suit. Fuck! The intern is a fucking moron!

The situation can still be salvaged. All that need to be done is—

"Let's go a few rounds. I need some amateur time." Barton grins without morth, as most of his smiles are these days. "Unpredictability."

The intern should have worn a suit. Nobody asks a guy in a suit to get his head bashed in.

Fuuuuuuuck.

When Barton tells the story later he makes Stiles sound pretty good. The reality is that it was a straight-up violation. Prison style.

Stiles decides that if the details ever come out he is going to call it a valuable learning experience. No, no! A teachable moment… The phrase comes to him through a comfortingly clarifying haze of pain, pain-killers and a slab of cold beef that he's been assured is covering the right side of his face. It's a vaguely disgusting notion but since he can't really feel his face anymore, it's probably all right.

"Sorry," The vaguely Hawkeye-shaped blur tell him. "You sort of surprised me there at the end. Instincts took over. You are better than I expected…"

Stiles weighs the pros and cons of moving his tongue to answer and decides it's not worth the risk of drowning in his own spit. These are really good painkillers!

"You've had some combat experience." Barton says, doesn't ask. "You don't panic easily. Just need to up the level of your sparring. I'll talk to Danny about a schedule."

Oh, God. Why hath thou forsaken thy servant, Stiles? (But thank you for the painkillers! Excellent work there. He's still talking. Why is he talking instead of driving to the emergency room? Or a veterinarian, or something?)

"You control is for shit."

Who said that? Did I say that? I said that. I totally just said that… Fuck you, painkillers!

Stiles whimpers faintly and tries to look as head-injured as possible. Barton stares down at him, somewhat indignantly. "My control is fine! Like I said, you just need—"

"Bull. It's not just me," Stiles tells him and (he thinks) nods his head toward Danny's office. "Ask him. You almost put that dude from the 82nd through a wall last Monday. And there was no way that was on purpose."

Barton's eyes narrow into slits and Stiles begins to vaguely calculate the costs of major reconstructive surgery. And then the mat squeaks and an Avenger is sitting next to him, all sad-looking and shit.

"Sowwy." Stiles mumbles, grimaces and spits. "I mean, sorry. I'm pretty excellently high. I think."

"You are." Hawkeye assures him and sighs. "You want to sleep it off here, or do you want a ride to your place?"

The options seems fiendishly complex to Stiles and he glares resentfully at Barton for making him think about them. "Whatch… Fuck! What. Are. You. Doing." He enunciates carefully.

The other man blinks and cocks his head, "Pardon?"

"Where you go, I go. Coulson said to call if you start killing people." Stiles pauses, thinks deeply, and adds conscientiously. "Or burning shit."

Hawkeye closes his visibly doing some sort f calming exercise. "I am not fucking Banner!"

The exercise doesn't work, Stiles concludes perceptively.

"I've been brain-washed twice in the last month. Once through a blunt trauma to the cranium! I'm fucking dealing with it! Without murder and damn arson."

Just an occasional crippling and mutilation, Stiles thinks resentfully, but decides against vocalizing it. "It's a standing order."

"What?" Hawkeye catches himself mid-word and tries to moderate the volume, which result in the barked question coming out as some sort of really strange yelping screech, which Stiles finds hilarious. But giggling would probably be a wrong thing to do right now so he tries not to.

"It's a standing order for all the Avengers." He clarifies. "Not you specifically."

Barton looks at him warily and Stiles sighs. "But also you specifically."

"Fucking knew it."

"You are really foul-mouthed when the Captain is not around, you know that?"

That surprises a laughing snort out him and Barton flips Stiles off absently. "Look who is talking."

"I'm high! And mutilated! By you! And there's a cow on my face. I'm not in full control of my facilities. Or faculties. Is what I am saying."

"Oh quitcher bitchin'. It's just a cut. Probably not even going to need stitches. I just gave you the good drugs to stop your crying."

"I wasn't crying." Stiles informs him, carefully collecting the shattered remnants of his dignity. "I was disinfecting my manly wounds with naturally produced saline. Like a BAMF! Also – wait. What stitches? There stitches now?"

"If you are lucky," Barton tell him tiredly, his thoughts clearly far away again. "Chicks did scars."

"… I think you need to seriously re-evaluate you dating paradigm. And maybe life-choices in general."

"Funny." And the archer's voice is anything but. "I've been thinking the same thing."

There's a lot that Stiles can say to him. Relate. Share. Bond. He does after all, in fact, know what it is to come to the end of himself and start anew.

But he doesn't. Everyone, his father had told him once, long ago, goes to hell in their own way. What Barton saw and felt and did, and had done to him is his own, private hell. Whatever similarity Stiles can image or force on it would only cheapen it, diminish – not comfort. The most human of the Avengers, who had built himself into a superhero worthy of standing toe to toe with Gods and Monsters.

All that destroyed, taken away, perverted and broken into nothing in a blink of an eye. Something was restored. But who or what will emerge out of the ruins? When and how? If.

Who the shit can understand that? Or relate. Or share. Or bond over it.

"I want a steak." Stiles says and disgustedly peels the meat off his face. "But not this one. It's yucky."

"Did you just actually use the wor—"

"Did you know I was a dragon for a while? In college?"

"Uhh. We all experiment a little, in college, I guess…. I mean - what?"


	6. Chapter 6

The thing (one of many) that sucks about the Widow detail is that her workday apparently starts as about 11pm. Or never stops. With her it could go either way really.

Stiles has had no life since… well ever. He makes his own fun - first sticking his nose into Dad's cases, later keeping the pack from accidentally electrocuting themselves with a toaster or something. It is fun, but he has no illusions about it being defined as 'having a life' by any normal person standards. Unless one counts a couple of somewhat accidental trips to a gay bar, maybe...

He's comfortable with that.

The no-life-having-part.

Although the gay bar part too.

It's all good.

Stiles is 100% love.

(He actually uses that expression at one point, at the bar, and Danny, after having a what seems to be a mild stroke, feels compelled to explain what it actually means to him - before the situation escalates. Whatever. Stiles still likes it. 100% love. It's so… friendly!)

Anyway, the point being is that Stiles has a routine.

Routine comforts him and gives his life meaning. Routine is especially important if his face is still about 30% larger than the nature intended and people are maintaining the delusion that asking him daily whether it's true that Hawkeye made him cry like a little girl is hilariiiiious.

Assholes.

Anyway. Routine. Routine is important.

Essential even.

A big and extremely important part of that routine consists of two phases, come nightfall.

Phase one is chasing his roommates out of his room (which for some reason has become the apartment's equivalent of the water-cooler nook) and sprawling in a leather armchair (obtained through the cunning plan of saving it from abandonment and carrying it from the sidewalk all the way up the stairs that never fucking end – and, seriously, who throws out a perfectly good leather armchair just because of a few somewhat suspicious and eternally indelible spots of unnatural colors? Filthy one-percenter scum, that who.)

Phase two is turning on the TV and basking in the Godlike countenance of Craig Ferguson.

Sometimes there are snacks.

Stiles, in short, has learned to live with moderate expectations. He really doesn't ask much of the universe.

There will be no snacks tonight.

There will be no Craig, there will be no Geoff, there will only be Zuul – whose passport foolishly says Phil Coulson.

The heat has finally broken, and the pavement is dark and wet with the rain that has been trying to drown New York for the last 24 hours. That too makes perfect sense. It is the only thing that will make tailing Widow even more pointlessly frustrating. Stiles sighs, thinks longingly of the chair, and steps over the threshold into the warm and biometrically invasive embrace of Stark's security envelope.

He makes it through most of the Mansion with hardly any urges to engage in some sort of career ending interpretive dance of bloody retribution. Stiles decides to count that as a clear win to Truth, Justice and the Laker Girls.

Moderate expectations. That shit is key.

He quietly enjoys his triumph for a moment. Once he enters the conference room his evening will take a turn. It always does.

Stiles needs this victory and so he milks it ruthlessly before opening the door and stepping into the Purgatory.

Huh.

"That's more victims than usual…" Stiles mutters, looking around the unexpectedly full room.

"You said that part out loud," Rigby informs him, appearing silently behind him like a total fucking creeper.

"I got nothing to hide, you total fucking creeper. What's going on?"

"Dunno. The Man said come, I came."

"That's what she sai—"

Coulson doesn't even say anything, just walks through the small crowd toward the front of the room. It's enough to kill the buzz of side-conversations and send everybody scurrying for seats.

Stiles take the opportunity to detach himself from Fallon and slide next to Stanley Dreyfus, nodding to Cameron in passing – Bissett, being the smartest of them as always, had long since staked a claim to a corner seat in the back of the room and was waiting for the crap storm to start with his usual stoicism.

Stiles recognizes a bunch of other faces, but he doesn't really know them. They are Suits, mid-level but still full agents. And not even Coulson's usual pool of cannon-fodder. What the shit are they doing on the scut detail with the interns?

"Gentlemen. Ladies."

Stiles looks around again and finally spots the grand total of two women among the raging sea of testosterone. Some agent with a face screaming that she's too good for all this, and Shannon, perching up on a stool next to Cam, craning her neck to get the most out of her midgetry height. She grins back at him, the green eyes alive with yet another gossip or secret that she's managed to ferret out but can't tell until the room is dismissed.

"Ms. Lawrence." Coulson pauses, and a after a long moment his eyes narrow fractionally.

"Uh… sorry, Sir!"

Shannon smiles sickly at him, and her arm strikes out snake-quick at the nearest light switch, plunging the room into the not-at-all foreboding darkness, until the wall-screen comes alive at Coulson's command.

"The target will be in the building for another 20 minutes. This is the jump-off point. Three teams. Two follow in rolling rotation, one on stand-by with the surveillance van. Fallon is the eye in the sky."

Stiles blinks.

"Boy, this really escalated quickly…" Stan mutters sotto voce into his ear, in a practiced ritual.

"Yeah, it's really getting out of hand fast." Stiles finishes automatically, still trying to put the pieces together.

There are almost twenty people in the room, two thirds of whom are real and actual agents. What the fuck is happening? As depressing as the thought is (considering her biography, skill-set, and capabilities) Romanoff is clearly the most stable and dependable of all the Capes.

And anyway – this is the intern gig. There are almost palpable waves of resentment coming off the four of them. Hell, him too, probably. The smug smirks on the agents' faces aren't helping any, either.

"This," Stiles finally whispers, "is going to be very, very bad." He considers the situation for another moment and adds thoughtfully "Or worth missing Ferguson for. But - most likely and probably - very, very bad."

Stan snorts, his not inconsiderate bulk jiggling in deeply disturbing ways. "What are you, new? We intern for SHIELD. Bad is where we live, brah."

Alcoholism, Stiles thinks firmly, is not the answer.


	7. Chapter 7

After the briefing is over there's an obligatory milling around period.

Technically it should be 'everyone is striding put purposefully and with a great focus' period but the op suddenly (i.e. inevitably) gets pushed back by an hour and half.

The most immediate consequence of this is that Stiles gets to vigorously sit around with his thumb up his ass and partake of the wondrous spectacle that is SHIELD trash-talking.

It's scintillating.

And by 'scintillating' he, of course, means 'retarded.'

His canny tactical instincts lead him to hide safely behind the safely massive… er, mass of Stan. It's a plan of strategeristic genuiosity. Besides the sheer physical presence that is currently hiding him from all the excitement, there's also Stan's personality that can be best described as volatile.

It's not that he is crazy or anything. Just a little unpredictable. Which Stiles totally gets. For all he knows Stan may have been the only half-native, half-Jewish guy on Oahu. And having to leave Hawaii for the friendliest place of nowhere, would piss him off to.

Although Stan is actually quite fond of New York.

Anyway, as far as Stiles can tell his coping mechanism consists of creating a bi-polar response methodology. Sometimes he'll go weeks placidly putting up with bullshit being piled on his plate. Sometimes he'll deck a Praetorian sergeant and sit on his head, leaving his fellow interns in a huge pile of crap because apparently SHIELD has found a lot of value in the Gestapo's ideas on collective responsibility and mass repression.

Fallon, at one point, advances the idea the reactions correspond to a specific part of Stan's genetic cocktail. But Stand calls him an anti-Semite and stares at him for a while. It is really hard to say when Stan is joking, sometimes, so that discussion doesn't really come up anymore.

Whatever. The pertinent fact is that so far today seems to be one of the quiet days. Stan calmly chewing his way through yet horrifically smelling attempt at a healthy lunch, while the Suits filling the room are building up their morale at the expense of the little people.

"Fucking interns."

"I know, right? Making the simplest shit complicated."

"It's a damn hide-and-seek. They can't follow her to the destination once?"

"So now we gotta spend the night, showing these geniuses the goddamn basics."

"Fucking fieldcraft 101."

"The remedial class."

"Niiiiice. Ahahaha!"

Ironically, Stiles notices Cam first. Which doesn't really mean anything. The dude may have been standing there for the last hour. Of all the interns he's the clearly the star. Slim and dark, quietly competent, he pretty much sets the curve when it comes to all the shooting, burning, stalking and looting stuff.

Fallon is the uber-geek, and his place among the Nerd Herd is guaranteed, everyone knows that (including himself, which is 50% of what makes him an unbearable pain), but deadly fucking scary Cam is the trajectory of his own. He's definitely being groomed for a Costumedom. Which is something else that everyone knows – everyone except Cam.

Or maybe he does and just doesn't give a shit. It's hard to tell with Cam. Not a talker.

Once he places Cam, Stiles barely even has to look. Wherever he is, there's … yep. Shannon's red hair is somehow managing to project enough aggressive feeling that Stiles actually sniffs the air experimentally, already rehearsing his excuse for Coulson.

_And then I smelt ozone and kind of blacked out, Your Majesty. They were already dead when I woke, up, honest! _

One of the Suits picks up on the ever-so-subtle fact that Shannon may be the easiest target for a reaction and begins to zero in on her. She steps forward, chin up and teeth bared, clearly on the verge of one of her lectures about the genealogical irregularities of someone's family history.

Stiles lick his lips nervously and elbows Stan, hissing for him to fix it. The big man sighs heavily and without looking up from his lunch snags Shannon's shoulder. Shannon immediately curses him out, of course.

The agent snickers. Of course.

At which point Cam, Stan and Stiles all look at him. Stiles with the slightly amazed disbelief usually reserved for someone volunteering to disarm a mine. Cameron and Stanley with a Purpose. And Shannon with a sudden and deeply unsettling calm,

They are staring like they are planning to remember him.

The other Suits are crowding behind their clearly brain-damaged comrade in a show either of moral support or the fact that mental deficiency and assholetitude is contagi—

A slim tail of a vague idea that might be a thought skims across the surface of Stiles's mind and he looks too. Cataloguing faces, names, remembering as much as he can about them.

"Fallon…."

"Yeah?" Rigby is here too, of course. He might be a creepy reason that's keeping the Japanese pornographic industry in business, but he's still one of them so when they circled the wagon (around Stile's nice and safe hiding place, for some fucking reason!) of course he was going to end up here too.

Safety in numbers. Or a perfect bunched-up target for an artillery shell. Stiles guesses it's all about one's view of life.

"What'd you get when you did the b-check on these paragons of cloak-and-dagger arts?"

Stiles can practically feel Fallon puff himself up in righteous indignation behind him and squints in tired irritation. He's missing Craig for this shit…

"Save it, dude, all right. Come on. I know you backgrounded every damn one of them. You wouldn't be able to help your little rat self."

Fallon deflates. "So? What of it?"

"So, is it me or is this a group that is statistically unlikely to occur, given the unnatural concentration and combination of raging mediocrity and unfounded self-regard?"

Stiles is not an idiot. Only an idiot whispers in the middle of an office feud. That's the way to draw attention to yourself. Only an idiot draws attention to himself during an office feud. (Only a very special kind of idiot draws attention to himself during an office feud by picking on the only girl among the interns. The interns being the people with no sense of mortality, little thought of their career prospects, subsisting on coffer, malice and vague dreams of sleep.)

Stiles is not an idiot. Stiles is the kind of guy who says the most offensive thing possible in a calmly conversational tone just as the growing din of the feud suddenly hits one of those extremely inconvenient lulls.

Just in time for everyone to hear what he said.

The agents Look at him now. With a Purpose. Like they are planning to Remember him.

Stiles stares back and realizes that he's actually pretty much totally fucked. So he shrugs and smiles back at them. Widely and toothily.

It's like Mom used to say. If you are going to fail anyway - might as well fail gloriously, and with enthusiasm.

The Luck of the Stilinskis. If it weren't for bad, they'd have none at all.

The night is still young and warm when Coulson herds them all outside. The Suits have gone into the pre-mission semi-relaxed zone. They are still pissed but they've pushed it to the back of their minds. The only outward sign of the previous confrontation is the crooked, acid grin from the leader of the Able group. "Watch and learn, kiddies. This is how it's done in the varsity."

The interns' eyes meet silently and they let it go. Stiles has had the time to float his theory by them as they make their way from the room to the street.

Every single agent on the op is a neer-do-well with a bad attitude.

"It's a test." Stiles tells them.

"But not for us," Shannon adds, suddenly understanding.

And Cam smiles.

And so they let it go. Hell, Stiles thinks as he clambers up into the surveillance van (aka the Death Star. Because nobody felt like wasting ten hours of their life arguing with Fallon over the fucking name nobody except him was ever going to use anyway)

Worst comes to worst they will, in fact, pick some cool tricks up, Stiles thinks. And if they **can** keep up with the Widow – hey, maybe we are the assholes. Something occurs to him and he glances at Stanley. Dreyfus nods back at him and turns, to encompass the rest of the crew with a heavy, lidded look.

"We ain't throwing this. Let them eat it on their own."

Cam nods. Shannon just reddens and glares, pissed at the very suggestion.

Stiles's eyes flicker toward Fallon, but Rigby is deep into tinkering with the bird. The game is too fun for him to fuck with, just to screw the Suits.

"The target is moving."

Here we go again.

"How are you eating again?"

Fallon looks back at Shannon with an injured expression, his (5th) sandwich half-way to his mouth.

"You know the only thing I had for dinner today?"

"You say a burrito again and I cut you." Cam promises him softly.

Rigby blanches and edges slightly away. "Carrots, dude! Chill. Jesus."

Stiles tries for a lack of bias for a few seconds but decides not to bother. It's a very small van. And the smells that come out of a burrito-digesting Fallon defy all description and most of the Geneva Convention. Also how the guy can put that much food away and still weigh less than a deflated balloon, is just baffling.

The receivers in everybody's ears crackled and the dully annoyed voice of the Baker team leader assured everyone that they still had the target.

Superheroes will always disappoint you in the end.

Stiles privately thinks that this is, in fact the actual lesson that Coulson wants them to learn. Case in point being today.

Everyone is unhappy.

The van is pissed because there was no immediate drama exposing the Suits for the blowhard dickwads in some sort of flashy chase through the city, or an amazing sleight of hand that made them look like complete morons.

The Suits are pissed because there was no immediate drama allowing them to showcase the l33t skillz and put the Coulson's upstart petting zoo in its place.

Instead there is (going on second hour) the drudgery of a rolling stakeout. Romanoff was painting the town beige. (Red is exciting, beige is… beige)

She did the standard counter-surveillance stuff a few times. Hopped the subway, changed a few taxis, but everybody could tell that it was mostly pro forma. She knew they were there, they knew she knew, she knew that they knew that she knew…

Stiles badly wants somebody to stab him in the neck.

The only person having fun is Fallon. Widow has decided to check out some Broadway thing, so Rigby has been utilizing the lack of need for the resources at his command by using the Sentinel drone to expand his horizons. His horizons, inevitably, consist primarily of bedroom and bathroom windows of (occasionally) attractive women.

The moral of this story, Stiles decides, is that he's definably stopping to buy curtains on the way home. He strongly suspects Shannon is right there with him on that logic train.

But neither of them can even muster up the motivation to bark at Fallon. The lethargic apathy has claimed the throne and rules the van with an iron fist.

The biggest excitement of the night comes when there's a knock on the door, as Bissett returns from his donut run.

Stiles reaches to slide open the door and blinks curiously. The barrel of a .40 Sig Sauer is apparently freakishly huge when it's in your face like that. Cam shrugs at him apologetically from beneath the choke-hold. Stiles shrugs back, understandingly. 'cos, really…

He looks back into the gun. "Hi, Ms. Romanoff."

Behind him Stan falls on Shannon, and Rigby chokes on his sandwich, and almost flies the drone into the window of an St. Raymond Academy for Girls.

Stiles sighs. "Uh. We surrender?"

The Widow looks at him blandly and gives him Cam, motioning with the Sig. "You're in the way. Move."

He moves. Behind him Shannon squeaks.

That girl has a truly unhealthy crash on the Widow. And the Stiles remembers Rigby and suddenly feel very, very tired.

Cam's thoughts seem to follow a similar path as he looks speculatively at Romanoff's gun and Fallon's slack-jawed expression, and then at the gun again.

That's an excellent point, actually. Stiles hasn't considered the very high potential for Rigby getting shot in this scenario. The evening is suddenly looking up.

He isn't sure exactly how it happens but a few minutes later all five of them are huddling in the far corner and the Widow is fiddling with the controls of the drone. Irritably.

"Who is in charge of the bird?"

"Uh, I am. Rigby Agent. I mean Agent Fallon. I mean Intern Fallon, sir. I mean, ma'am."

Romanoff turns around and stared for a long second. "You are one of Coulson's?"

"He's really good with computers!" Shannon interjects defensively. The worship in her eyes dies down a bit at the skepticism in Widow's voice. Even a fellow redhead who is a super-assassin and an Avenger isn't allowed to rag on the Boss. There are lines in the sand.

"And the Sentinel is in Bronx, although my last position is fixed in Manhattan because…?"

Shannon pales, her freckles suddenly prominent, and glances somewhat desperately at Stan. The Hawaiian Jew passes the look to Stiles. Stiles gladly unburdens himself on Bissett.

Cam takes like a man. "He's a peeping tom."

Shannon closes her eyes and appears to be rediscovering God and the power of prayer. Cam plows on stolidly. "He's _**very**_ good with computers."

Widow nods, as if it all makes perfect sense to her, and turns back to the controls.

Shannon mouths something intricately vile at Cam. Cam looks hurt. Stanley appears to be asleep with his eyes open. Fallon may actually be drooling a little.

Stiles badly wants somebody to stab him in the neck.

People often accuse life (and universe) of being unfair. Or a bitch.

But, as the poet says. Life is not a bitch. Life is a beautiful woman.

Stiles finds proof of this truth a number of time in his various adventures. But none are as sweet as the moment when the comm gear in the van goes completely and entirely nuts.

"It's not her!"

"What?"

"We lost the target. I repeat we don't have the subject!"

"What are you talking about, I have the visual!"

"You don't have shit! It's not her. It's just another redhead."

"She pulled a damn switch on us?"

"There's no way. We were eyes-on the whole time!"

"Fuck! Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!"

"Where's the bird? Control – do you have her? Control?"

Stiles has to fight back a highly ill-timed giggle, as he notices Shannon's and Widow's eyebrows making an identical climb at the phrase "just another redhead."

Life. She is a wonderful thing of wondrous wonder.

His reverie is rudely broken by Stanley's elbow in his ribs. Before Stiles can express his appraisal of the situation, Dreyfus catches his eyes and stares meaningfully at the monitor. Stiles follows.

The feed doesn't really make sense. Some guy is doing what appears to be a really weird set of calisthenics on the roof. It's kind of hard to make out the specifics from where StiIes sits. It's not weird-weird – not for New York, but the fact that Romanoff seems absolutely riveted by the spectacle…

That is definitely weird-weird. And also odd.

He glances inquiringly at Stan, but the latter just shrugs and shakes his head. "SHIELD, brah. Don't dwell. That way madness lies."

Stan is a lot smarter than most people give him credit for. Wise like an elephant who is friends with a monkey. Stiles has always said that.

The Suits are going mad on Broadway. Which would make a great band name, but currently is just annoying, so Stiles kills his comm. Romanoff nods at him approvingly and taps her own. "Sir? It's done."

She pauses, presumably listening to the instructions from the other end of the line.

Shannon seems to be on the verge of the spontaneous combustion and even Cam appears to be on the verge of exhibiting some sort of vaguely humanoid emotion as the curiosity eats them alive.

Rigby's eyes are firmly fixed on Romanoff's ass.

"Yes. Do you have it on your mainframe? Yes. Yes. Everything? Yes, sir."

The Widow taps the keyboard and the monitors go dark. Which, somewhat surprisingly has the effect of bringing Fallon out of his stupor. "Hey, what are-"

Stiles recognizes the next thing to appear in Romanoff's hand and winces sympathetically. He really hopes that Fallon doesn't have anything particularly dear to him on the van's hard drive.

They all watch him out of the corners of their eyes as he, in turn, observes the brain-death of the Death Star. Rigby blinks rapidly, and swallows dryly, the prominent Adam's apple working under the skin.

His voice is suspiciously thick when he finally speaks. "So. Are you... uhm... seeing anyone?"

After Fallon is gagged and zip-tied, Widow makes another call. "Yes, sir. I'll be there shortly. Don't you want it in writing? Yes, sir. I think they were doing better before you sent in the clowns. I understand, but bad habits have a way of spreading. You asked, sir."

Nobody really needs help interpreting this conversation. Shannon may be, in fact, considering dumping Coulson for Romanoff, after all. Widow throws her keys to the van and looks them over assessingly. "Whose turn is it with Banner next week?"

Stiles can practically feel the traitorous stares and covertly flips off the Judases behind his back, even as he meets Widows eyes.

"Good luck."

Oh, for shit's sake! And the night was actually going well there for a second! Why would she even say that?

Unnecessary.

He is still deep in the detailed contemplation of his misery when Romanoff disappears down some alley. The rest are pretty understanding and demonstrate it practically and tangibly by letting him brood in the corner as they untied and ungag Rigby, and pack up the gear.

"So who is Peter Parker?" Cam asks as Shannon is navigating the van back toward home.

"Who?"

"The guy on the roof. You didn't see the name on the back pack?"

"No. Because we are not freaks like you!"

"That's hurtful."

"Hey - do you think they are going to take the cost of the gear she skragged out of our paychecks?"

"Oh, shit."

"They can't do that! I'm barely making rent as it is! I've got loans!"

"WATCH THE ROAD, SHANNON!"

"AH!"

By and large, Stiles deems the night to be a wash. When you tabulate the entire thing, and throw in the fact that his face is barely even throbbing anymore – really, it broke pretty even.

He walks the last few blocks toward his building, slowly measuring the boardwalk with his steps, the jacket hanging loosely over his shoulder. The night is still warm, and the asphalt is still wet.

And he is in New York. Exactly as he imagined it would happen when he was 14, reading Batman comics with Mom in that dreary hospital room.

Life. Sometimes it is exactly what you expect happening when you expect it least.

Allie smiles at him. When he rounds the corner, sitting on the steps of his building, as if it's the most normal thing in the world for her to be here. In New York, on his steps. She smiles at him and tucks that ever-errant lock hair behind her ear.

Life.


	8. Chapter 8

"Your hair is long again," Stiles says and sits down next to her. "It looks nice."

"I'm not here to sleep with you," She informs him loftily. "I am a grad student now."

"… well, I didn't know there was a rule, but still. It's good to have those boundaries nice and clear."

She laughs, as he knew she would, bumps his side with hers, and leans her head onto his shoulder. "Hey, you."

"I missed you too."

Every day.

He isn't sure when it all starts, to be honest, although he'd like to be. Stiles is a romantic at heart. Dates are significant. The beginning of things – they matter. But he's just not sure. It all kind of just… happens.

Even back home, the last couple of years, they grow closer - both slightly apart from the rest now. Both trailing their packs. A not-quite Hunter, an entirely not a wolf. By the time Mr. Argent comes up on them up on Lyndon's Bluff, they are already friends. Real ones, not just two people connected by a Scott-shaped interface. He tells them both that it is, of course, laudable that Allison is practicing with him but maybe she should concentrate on not screwing up her own katas before trying to teach them to other people.

And then he doesn't shoot Stiles even a little bit.

The Pack knows about him hanging with the Hunters and they glower, until Boyd does the Boyd thing and points out that it's either that or have one of them on permanent Stiles rotation - given the frequency with which he gets himself fucked up by the walking horror of the week. After that they treat the situation in the adult and mature werewolf manner and just don't talk about it. Which is a coping mechanism Stiles approves of quite a bit actually.

And so it goes. Punching, shooting, a surprising amount of baking. Mr. Argent gravely instructs him that its essentially therapeutic, but Stiles has his doubts. Especially after finding hours of Paula Deen footage. But what the hell – martial arts and pie.

Useful and delicious!

He complains to Allison about Lydia (or lack thereof), she bitches to him about Scott (and the cluelessness of). Then they have pie and the Hunters kick the shit out of both of them.

It's nice.

Homey.

Then there's that whole awkward period when he leaves and goes a little crazy for a while. Awkward for him because he goes a little crazy for a while. Awkward for her because she gets caught in a middle of a break-up tap-dance between him and Scott, and figuring out where the line is between supporting her boyfriend and being a friend of his boyfriend. That's how she puts it, anyway, when Erica storms Stanford with her in tow.

She was pretty quiet and polite for most of that visit – which in Allie-speak means 'pissed beyond the telling of it.' Erica, being a strategist of uncommon talent, of course got her drunk, dumped her on Stiles, and went off hunting the vulnerable college boys. Or experimenting sorority girls. Or unwary professors.

By the time Stiles manhandles Allison to his place she explained her feelings about the situation to him in graphic, single-syllable terms, with a lot of gesticulating expansive enough to hive him a black eye. She later swears that's accidental. It's possible, he supposes...

He remembers to suggest to her the next morning to maybe stop hanging out with the Hunters so much. It's not good for her vocabulary. Her hangover dwarves her malice just enough for him to survive.

He wonders later, how much of that irritation comes from not being the first one to come and check up on him.

He does a lot of thinking during that first unholy summer, waiting for the semester to start and nothing to do but sit in his room and run his decisions over and over in his head, disassemble the steps that led him here and put the pieces back together. A lot of obvious things finally become obvious in that room, and a lot seem much less so. What he and Allie are to each other, is somehow both.

She is his first, maybe only, real friend outside family (Scott bis/b family). He knows that. What he doesn't get, until he leaves, is that he's hers too.

Lydia is Lydia, but there are lines there that can never be crossed or erased, lines drawn by those early lies between them and their consequences.

Apart from Scott, Stiles is the only one who's been there from the beginning, when her world changed and changed her with it. When the Pack begins to claim Scott, inch by inch, Stiles is the only one she can really talk to. And vice versa.

And the more they grow up the more they realize how important what it is they have in common. Not Scott. Not just Scott, rather.

The lack of purity of purpose that sustains the wolves and the Hunters. Team Human, Allie calls them once, after they watch her father's men drill, moving through the woods in silent, focused unison, intent and dangerous, predators with the minds of men, made into a greater whole than the individuals they are.

"Just another Pack." Stiles says and she laughs, as he knew she would, bumps his side with hers, and leans her head onto his shoulder. Because the alternative is gross sobbing. With snot, and mucus, and mild hysterics and everything. Disgusting like a monkey with no elephant. So they laugh instead, and start a secret club.

When Lydia hears the in-joke she imperiously demands membership and, of course, gets it. But not really.

He and Allison are Team Human.

And then he leaves.

Among the rubble of everything that has to be put together anew - his thing... friendship... mess with Allie is definitely one. Polite fury and drunken rage of that first day aside, a new normal has to be found. Slowly she becomes his most frequent visitor.

The easy explanation being that she's the ambassador, there to be a go-between him and Scott. To make that mess right too.

Stiles doesn't know how much she ever believes that she can repair it. He never asks. Allison is smart, she knows much, and guesses more. But still – him and Scott… It's him and Scott.

An asthmatic kid with a single parent and worn sneakers, and Stiles who (his first day in grade school) invites Jackson to be in his D&D game. It is genius plan, no doubt about it. After all if Jackson joins, there are bound to be other people too!

They are practically fated to find each other.

They survive the school together and even weasel their way onto the lacrosse team. Scott's mom bandages their scrapes, Stiles's Mom sneaks them in to see the Hellraiser marathon when they are 13, and Dad doesn't tell either of them about the Robin Hood Experiment.

Him and Scott are him and Scott.

And then he leaves.

Scott grows up a lot in the last two years of high school. They all do. It's that or die. But underneath the fur and fangs of a slowly budding Alpha he's still Scott. And it hurts.

That's what Allie keeps saying, over and over, using different words and varying volume, asking and daring, mocking testosterone poisoning and dick measuring contests, convincing him to be the bigger man (the shade she blushes after accidentally making that pun is a thing of beauty and forever wonder). She tries very trick, really. It's kind of impressive, he tells her, and posits that she's going to make a terrifying Mommy someday.

She doesn't appreciate that one, but it does the job and the siege eases off.

There are no simple solutions, or a magic movie montage to make it all better. It just is.

Of all of them Scott is probably the only one to get it why Stiles has gone. Maybe not rationally, not right away, but deep in his gut. But understanding things doesn't make them any better, or easier. He tries, at first, to pretend that it can be adjusted somehow, worked out, that they can still be Stiles and Scott, with only a few fixes. He emails and calls and talks about coming up.

Stiles plays along, but only just. It's a hard thing to realize that watching Scott's name pop up in his email or phone actually makes his day worse. But still, he plays along.

The start of the school year makes it easier. He really does have an anarchy of things to occupy his mind. To finally get him outside his own head. The classes are genuinely hard and he learns the difference between a real university and high school. It takes effort to be a smart kid in the room now. Thankfully, due to having Lydia in the vicinity for much of his life, his adjustment is considerably easier than the shell-shocked freshmen who have gone their entire existence being bthe/b smartest kid in the room.

New people, new worries, new everything.

It makes it easier to cut conversations short, to take longer before replying to emails. Easier to wait for Scott's life to catch up too and crowd Stiles out of it.

And in time it does.

Or at least it seems that way until Allie tells him.

Scott takes it hard. And too tries to work through it, figure it all out, make it make sense. Enough of Derek has rubbed off by now that he blames himself first. It's Scott, Allie tells him, that actually puts it all in words - for her, the Pack, everybody.

Stiles, he tells them, has been the strongest of the them from the start. Enough so that looking back on it Scott winces, the shame clawing at him. Enough so that even then, sometimes, the invincible self-absorption of a teenager that he wears like Arthur's armor, cracks and lets him notice it, making Scott feel occasionally as a vampire not a werewolf. As if he is draining Stiles dry to stay alive. All of them are.

But Stiles is only human, in every sense of the word. There is only so much that he can take, only so much to strength he has to share - with Scott, with Lydia, with Allison, with Derek, with his Dad.

They all miss it, of course. But Scott is his best friend, and he *should* have seen it. Should have seen the moment as the excitement of actually, no-shit, for fucking real, totally being in the middle of a monster movie turns simply into the coping mechanism.

Into just something to keep him going another day, a reason of his own - not just Scott's - to justify answering midnight phone calls, running through the bloody halls, burying friends or losing them, playing Mercutio to Scott's Romeo.

He had been just a kid, like the rest of them. And unlike the rest of them he deals with it one on one. With no simplistic, obvious anchor to define him, or anchor him, or succor him. He isn't the immune secret genius Queen Bee of the school, not a werewolf king, nor a princess of a Hunters' clan, not a jock hero with a kanima complex.

And yet, somehow, it's him that ends up carrying all of their woes on his back, playing Dad to a bunch of scared children with fangs and arrows. Stiles, who is still reeling from his Mom's death, even as hides it away.

It was only a matter of time before he reached his limit, Scott tells them, and went looking for strength to borrow, instead to give.

That little speech is what brings Lydia and Jackson to his door, and then the rest of them, in time. But not Scott.

It is a hard thing to be replaced and harder yet to become, to feel, replaceable. Especially by the one person who was supposed to never… The one person… By your brother!

Perhaps that too is one of the lessons that shepherds them into the adulthood. Too many of them seem to come with a cost of hurt.

After months of going the extra mile, Scott simply starts matching Stiles. It seems like the thing to do; to just stop trying so hard. And there's a sickly wonder, a wish to see what happens. And surprisingly little surprise when the expected does and the silences between them grow longer, the conversations shorter.

"We are facebook friends now." Scott tells Allison during their last conversation on the subject, and the acid bitterness almost burns the air. "It's nice."

It breaks her heart, all of it. And so she stops trying too. And so her visits stop being about Scott and Stiles and become about Stiles and Allison. They rebuild something – different but strong, their own, apart. Team Human lives again. A strangely liberating feeling, he finds, especially after that summer of hell.

He still has bad spots though, and a visit of hers inevitably occurs during one. And life being what it is, it just happens to be the time when he (in retrospect horrifyingly unwisely) tries to medicate his soul and mental health with alcohol. It also coincides with Allie's umpteenth break-up with Scott. By that point they begin to occur with metronomic regularity and become a bit of joke (one of the few that is - from her perspective - horrifying shared and exploited by Allison's father band/b her friends, in equal measure)

As far as Stiles is concerned, and explains to everyone forever after, he is taken advantage of in the most unladylike fashion possible.

It also makes for the easily the most awkward morning of his life, until their eyes meet glancing furtively at each other over the IHOP table and just start giggling at the absurdity and the cliché-ness of it all. It's just so fucking icollege/i.

They don't sleep together again, but there's no weirdness either. They just keep on.

He leaves Stanford for SHIELD, she graduates State with honors and goes off for a little stint with the European Hunters.

They talk as often as they can.

And then, one day, he finds her on his building's steps, her hair tickling his ear.

"NYU?"

"Yep. Anthropology and comparative mythology."

There's a joke about majors, and practicality, and Women's Studies, and all the obvious rest to be made. But he doesn't, of course, and lets the silence rest where it is.

"It's coming, Stiles." Allison says finally, softly. "It's coming soon. We have to solve this thing before it's too late. If he has to go through Derek…"

"Have you ever heard…" Stiles hugs her closer and puts his chin on the top of her head, "About SHIELD's Night Watch Archives?"

And then he tells her why he'd really said yes to Coulson's flunky back then.


	9. Chapter 9

iGenerals gathered in their masses

Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction

Sorcerers of death's construction

In the fields the bodies burning

As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

Oh lord yeah! /i

The guitar screamed and moaned, splitting the air with the sound of its pain. Clearly it was going to be a good day.

For somebody.

Two months ago, as the Avengers' Mansion became whole and fully recovered from the battle-scars and wounds, its proud owner decreed that henceforth "War Pigs" was going to be its official anthem of victory and joy.

Nobody had paid much attention to the announcement until three days later, when Stark Industries and Iron Man Inc. finally won the lawsuit against the city for the reimbursement for something or other. It was hard to ignore the new custom after that.

At any given moment there were a dozen or so lawsuits swirling around the mad scion of the Stark dynasty. Tony's approach to the situation was, unsurprisingly, very Tony-like. Anything related to sexual adventures was settled immediately. Everything else was followed with the command to "Unleash the Kraken!"

How the venerable firm of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway felt about being christened 'the Kraken,' Stiles did not know. They were increasingly feared and hated by the City Hall though.

The retaliation from that quarter followed as the interminable flood of safety inspectors, union representatives, permit revocations, and 'lost' paperwork assailed the Mansion. So far fruitlessly – apart from resulting in Pepper's famous accident when, unknowing that the microphone was still on, she wistfully said something that, in retrospect, had proven more damaging to the City's relationship with the Mansion than most of Stark's carefully planned and intricately offensive shenanigans.

Per the gossip mill, Tony had actually been seriously invested in pushing through a full blown marketing plan, alight with the idea of t-shirts proclaiming "I miss Rudy" competing with the now ubiquitous 'I Heart NY' design. Presumably Pepper sat on him until that plan went away.

City Hall's dislike of the Mansion moved past the usual and congealed into cold, enduring hate.

War was ongoing and casualties continued to mount.

The Kraken was well fed.

There was a number of possible explanations for Black Sabbath's invasion of the Mansion in the wee hours of this particular morning. Stiles declined to ponder any of them. A gallon of the worst coffee on New York (and half a donut) roared through his veins, barely keeping him awake. It had been a long night.

It would have been really nice to sleep till noon (as the fucking schedule promised he could!) but that was life in the show biz for you. He stood for another moment girding his loins, inhaled the last gulp of the dark New York morning and stepped into the terrible and awesome domain of Iron Man.

Or more accurately, he tried to and was immediately ran over by a trolley and a feverish looking lab coat. "Watch it, it's leaking! Leaking!"

Leaking. Right.

Fuck, he hated the War Pigs days.

The key to surviving a War Pigs day was information.

Understanding the situation as clearly and as quickly as possible was instrumental to assessing what was the safest hiding place, and claiming it before anyone else. It's clear strategic thinking like that, Stiles felt, that marked him as one of that fearless thin black-suited line, standing between Earth and space monsters, space pirates, space terrorists, and One Direction.

He really needed more coffee, too.

Or possibly an adrenaline shot.

Mmmm, adrenaline….

Shaking off the thought, he braced himself again and (more cautiously) repeated the attempt to penetrate the Mansion.

On the one hand it could counted as a win – nobody tried to smash him in a face with a leaking cart, and he was inside.

On the other hand – he was inside. So not a win of any sort, really.

The fundamental problem of the War Pigs days is that the normal rules, the comforting structure, the written and the unwritten understandings ceased to apply. Or, to put it more simply, the lord of the manor felt justified and free to slip the notional leash of convention, and venture beyond his lair up in the rarefied heights of the top 5 floors, to visit with the common folks.

Excitement and medical bills usually followed rapidly along.

iCase in point,/i Stiles though as he looked around and tried not to wince. They smelled fear and weakness here.

Thick cables crisscrossed the lobby, some of them pulsing alarmingly with some sort of green-purple energy. The thickest one snaked all the way across the floor and disappeared into the elevator shaft. It may have been moaning. Stiles decided not to dwell.

Some sort of tent-looking situation squatted like a malignant mushroom over the main intersection of the power lines, badly concealing (or may be just covering) the focus of the day's excitement. Stiles blinked and absently considered the logistics of getting the head of a space dragon through the door. He was pretty sure it shouldn't have fit…

The finely-honed battle instincts of a SHIELD intern Iand Beacon Hills High graduate), however, kept him moving purposefully even as he pondered the puzzling puzzle.

Putting distance between oneself and the object of Tony Stark's momentary obsessive affection was essential. In practice that translated to walking with the aura of having an important task, maintaining an impenetrable façade of absolute confidence, and continuously scanning the vicinity for the escape route.

The realization that every stairwell was blocked – with people rushing through them while looking disturbingly excited (nobody wearing a lab coat to work should that happy, as far as Stiles was concerned. It disturbed him on the primal level) or by yet more cables – did not really have time to translate into the full blown panic. From atop of a no longer presentable couch, deep within the corner dedicated to the haphazardly pushed aside furniture Pepper grinned at him, climbed up, leaning on the man next to her for support, and waved urgently. "Quick! Before they come back out! Quick like a bunny!"

Stiles was not terribly wild about the bunny part but, apart from that, the advice seemed solid. He made for the island of relative sanity, saving the questions for a more opportune moment. Pepper helped him across the last barrier, saving him from an ugly encounter with a particularly viciously positioned and unnecessarily agressive ficus.

"You are graceful and limber like a young camel. That ficus has clearly had ninja training and a personal vendetta against you, of some sort." She informed Stiles consolingly. "Want a cookie?"

Stiles perched next to Stark's right hand woman on the back of the couch, ignored the first comment with a manful disdain that such low sarcasm deserved, and eyed the plate consideringly. It smelled awesome.

The man next to him pulled the tray out of his reach, without as much as a look in Stiles's direction, the wind-chill of the vicinity rising sharply.

"Happy!"

"I don't feed misogynists. This is a feminist household, we don't encourage assumptions of gender-assigned roles here."

Stiles sighed and stared at the cookies forlornly. They looked ireally/i good, too.

It was an honest mistake!

When Ms. Potts ("Call me Pepper," She'd said cheerfully) first fed him, he assumed she brought them for herself and was sharing. And she wasn't even mad! Just found it funny. Although not as much after Stark heard about it and found it even funnier.

Apparently Pepper's complicated relationship with the baking arts was something of a running joke. Cookies were from Happy ("Call me Mr. Hogan," He'd said coldly).

And, in retrospect, life would have been a lot easier if he'd kept taking cooking lessons instead of deciding to investigate Women's Studies.

"I'm not a misogynist," Stiles said plaintively. "I'm hungry."


	10. Chapter 10

Life is the art of compromise. A dangerous and delicate balancing act – compromise too little and you are an Omega, a wolf with no pack. Alone in the universe of enemies and strangers.

Stiles meets his share of them over the years. Almost without exception they are in pain, always. By and large wolves, like men, are not meant to live alone. Some cover up their hurt with bravado, wrapping the mythos of a lone outlaw and a proud outsider about them, taking solace in pretending that their festering wound is a source of strength and pride.

Other give in to the despair, longing (sometimes begging) for inclusion.

Broken souls.

It is no wonder that so many of them make the trek to his town, some crossing a continent, bypassing other packs, launching themselves at the one that they feel deep in their bones was right for them. The one that would be their chance to belong again. To run with the pack again. To sing at them moon as a part of a choir.

Beacon Hills – the island of broken wolves.

He'd seen the flipside of the coin as well. The need to compromise metastasizing, the nature of a Beta wolf taking over, the habit of giving ground, or following orders becoming the habit of simply following. Man's nature diluting itself bit by bit, step by step - until there is little left that's recognizable either as man or wolf. Just ruins.

People are not wolves, of course. Not even furry werewolf type people. But Stiles remains confident (and by his mid-twenties he takes special pride in being wise enough to hold on to but a few certainties) that the basic truth is universal.

Life is a balance of compromises.

And each decision matters.

"You are being totally unfair." He explains to Pepper with utter lack of conviction that she'll agree.

She doesn't.

Happy eats another cookie and smiles thinly.

"Sharing is caring, you know." He tells them both.

Pepper smiles brightly. "Agreed! Which is why this is such a perfect deal! You share with me the delicious gossip about your girl, and I'll share with you my—"

"Ahem."

"—Happy's! Happy's delicious cookies."

Compromises.

They are a bitch.

And so are roommates. Fucking SHIELD is like a goddamn Albanian village. Gossip moves through it with the speed made of ninjas and electricity.

And the worst part is that he'd totally seen this coming back when. But realistically there is never any other choice. Given the peculiarities of the job, and the rent-costs of NYC, rooming with fellow interns is more or less inevitable.

Even if they are a bunch of rumor-mongering shitbags.

"She's not my girlfriend," he says sullenly and snatches a fistful of cookies from the plate. Happy scowls, but mildly and mostly pro-forma. He even slides the trey minutely toward Stiles, his eyes alight with curiosity.

"I didn't say she was," Pepper says way too calmly and evenly, suddenly intent on him. "I just -"

"You were implying!" Stiles points an indignant finger, hastily swallowing the pastries. "You were totally implying. You are still totally implying! You are a dirty implier!"

"Maybe you were inferring like a neurotic inferrer?"

Oh, fuck.

"You're dripping" Pepper Potts informs her boyfriend helpfully. "Slimily. Like a slimy dripper."

"… I grow bored of this infantile game." Tony Stark, billionaire and a superhero, responds sulkily and proceeds to make his way through the furniture barricade with the verve and gusto of a Viking warrior. "Happy, why are you feeding the squirrely guy? Have you betrayed your feminist principles, already? There better be some left for me."

"Yes, sir. I put them on your desk."

"Well, I'm not at my desk, now am I? So whose fault is this?"

"The desk's, obviously, I'd say."

Perfect. That's just perfect.

"Hi, Dr. Banner."

"Morning." The only man who scares Natasha Romanoff dips his head a little and smiles at Stiles. "Hear you had a long night."

"Stiles's got a girlfriend."

"No, he doesn't!" It comes out a little more loudly and defensively than Stiles intends and, since he's now in the middle of a group that includes the bosses of pretty much everyone in the building, there's now staring. And, clearly, judging.

Some mornings things wouldn't go right even if you paid mafia to break their legs.

And so Stiles compromises, slides over to let Stark sit next to Pepper, and tells them about Allie. A compromised amount, of course. Or maybe compromising. Those lines are iffy at the best of times.

He spins the story, and tells the jokes, and makes himself the punch line often enough with the easy self-deprecation that he has long since made a tool, rather than an automatic self-defense mechanism.

And all the while he fights the urge to stare at Banner any longer than necessary, and all the while he feels those sad, smart, mad, tired, kind eyes on him.

For a boy who runs with wolves the ability to figure out who the people are, behind the everyday, apart from the social conventions, and outside of compromises… That ability is the line between saving lives, or being bleeding meat. That – and not the clever arm locks, leg sweeps, or feats of marksmanship - is what matters in the shadow world of heroes and monsters, if you are Team Human.

That lesson Stiles doesn't learn from Mr. Argent, nor from Dr. Deaton. He learns it from his Dad, early and firmly.

It takes him a little longer to learn the rest of it, of course. And there's a cost to wisdom, the cost to knowledge. Always.

Lydia is his. His cost, and lesson, and everything in between and beyond. It's that ability to see beyond the obvious and behind the mask that lands him with an unrequited crash that haunts him for a better part of a decade. And it's the realization of the necessity to turn that vision inward, to look at his own truths that, eventually, hunts him out of Beacon Hills, and chases him all the way to the Big Apple, to the Avengers' Mansion, to sit on a piece of a traumatized furniture and trying not to think about the man watching him.

Stiles likes Banner. He understands him perhaps more than any of the rest. A hero with a monster trapped inside him, a man forever holding back the primal force of rage and destruction and chaos. For a boy from Beacon Hills none of that is new.

But then nothing is ever quite so easy or simple in life; that terrible chain of compromises.

Their brief courtship, for that one terrible and glorious month, is probably the worst era of Stiles's life. Lydia finally sees him, recognizes him, understands him. Choses him.

Stiles supposes he should have known even then that it wouldn't last. Everyone else did and tried to warn him. And maybe he even understands it. But he isn't strong enough to walk away. She is everything he'd ever wanted, the only thing he wants with the same force and longing as he wished for his Mom not to die, and for Scott to have a way out of killing Derek.

He is so very tired by then. And she's Lydia.

Even today, whenever they are in the same room he's perfectly aware of her, just as he'd been then – and probably always will be. Stiles doesn't really like to think about it very much. Some things in life cannot be solved, for they are not problems but conditions.

That lesson he learns from Peter.

And at the time it all seems like a fair trade. Even if (or when) she'd leave him – at least he'd have ithat/i, while it lasts, and then the memory. How can it possibly be worse than having nothing at all?

He remembers quoting Tennyson at Danny at some point, after yet another well-meaning attempt to warn him away and shudders in retrospectively crawling embarrassment.

God, but he was callow.

And Tennyson – a liar.

It is a terrible thing, Peter tells him after it was all in ruins and broken. But some lessons we only learn through pain. The former Alpha had smiled, that fucking annoying mocking smile of someone who is always one secret ahead of everyone else. Those lessons, he'd said and gripped Stiles's shoulder tightly enough to bruise, are usually the only ones that count, in the end.

Lydia is what he'd wanted most for a very long time. Given the world of myths and fables he'd stumbled into, he really should have known that she would also be the one who'd destroy him.

Because she finally sees him, recognizes him, understands him. Choses him.

And then doesn't.

Omegas deal with their pain in a myriad of ways. Some admit it and looks for a way out.

Others embrace it, and reject the alternatives.

Each looks for a solution to their problem.

Being a boy who runs with wolves is not a problem, however. It's a condition.

Embracing it and making a secret club with a clever name, makes for a fun Band-Aid, but it doesn't make you stronger, or faster, or being able to tear apart monsters coming for your father, or being able to fight back to back against the night as it closes in on the only brother you ever had.

You tell yourself that you fight the war by other means, but those words ring hollow as you sit by yet another hospital bed, or throw a palmful of dirt into yet another grave.

And every day you wonder whether you are just wasting time and putting on the inevitable. Every day you wonder about the Bite.

And every day you think more and more about your utter fucking uselessness.

Lydia is a fantasy. He understands that too late, turning that analytical gift on himself just after it no longer does any good.

Lydia is his anchor. A mirror of eternal, endless what-ifs.

What if she really knew him? What if she really understood who he was and what he did? What if she thought he was a hero? What if she loved him?

What if she did, and then left?

What if, in the end, he wasn't good enough?

What if he was judged and found wanting?

What if the reality of the fantasy turned out to be his worst nightmare.

In his head he knows it all for the selfish, insecure meanderings of the wounded mind. It is not really about him and Lydia. It is always about Lydia and Jackson. He knows it even then, whatever lies he tells himself. They are meant to be together. How often does that happen?

But then he no longer has the strength to be impartial, magnanimous, romantic. He no longer has the strength to look beyond his own broken heart. His insecurities and fears swamp him, and all he can do is grasp at whatever straws are left him, to try and keep his head above the water.

He tries resenting her, and it's easy enough for a while. And it helps, somewhat. But it's never as easy as hating himself.

Such lessons are hard. And they hurt. But knowledge is one thing that no one can take away from you.

What price wisdom?

Stiles spots it early, and watches carefully after. He recognizes the signs, the pattern of it.

She always knows where Banner is in relation to her. Not as Stiles is with Lydia – it's a catlike, hissing knowledge of a stronger, rival beast. She's viscerally, physically, hyper-aware of a threat in her vicinity. It is the same way that the Pack treated Jackson for months after his metamorphosis. Even those who tried, could help themselves. The instinct was hard-wired, and needed time to dissipate, for the rational knowledge that Jackson was no longer the anima to sink in into the backbrain.

Widow is a professional liar, a chameleon. To trust her body language (much less her words) is to set yourself up for losing from the word go. And yet Stiles is sure of this. Bone deep, iron-hard sure that this is true, that this is honest.

She's utterly terrified of Banner. Terrified in a Widow way, of course, which means coldly, rationally and tightly controlled.

But terrified, nonetheless.

It comes to him fairly quickly.

Unlike Stark (even with all his prodding and testing of the boundaries) or Captain (even with his tactical-computer of a brain) she's the only one who is never truly lulled by the face of a person. None of them, not even Thor with his supposedly widely varied experience of dealing with things whose appearances are more than deceiving - none of them have that sort of perpetual fear and awareness when it comes to Banner.

Only two people do.

Romanoff is one, being perhaps the preeminent expert on the man, having trained and researched for months in preparation for the potential mission against him. Living with the knowledge, having looked the survivors in the eyes, having walked the ruins and the remains left in his wake

The other, of course, is Banner.

His parting words to Rogers before the Hulk entered the fray during the battle of New York have long become SHIELD's lore. Whispered and discussed, analyzed and dissected – everyone has a theory as to what it all means, what truth it reveals.

"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry."

Eventually, as people do, they get tired and bored of the topic. There are no real answers to be had, after all. It becomes a bit of an inside joke, in fact. Some snicker and propound increasingly outré explanation. The more popular these days is the idea that Banner was just screwing with Cap and there was no real meaning in any of it.

It's all very clever and post-modern.

Stiles stays out of it.

He likes Banner. He understands him perhaps more than any of the rest.

And as he feels he those sad, smart, mad, tired, kind eyes on him he knows the truth. The Hulk is who he is. Dr. Bruce Banner is someone he has to remember being, all the time.

A monster with a face of man, chaos and pain chained by a fragile memory of what he used to be and wanted to become.

For a boy from Beacon Hills who'd ran with the wolves, none of that is new.


	11. Chapter 11

Stiles enjoys the elevators in the Mansion a lot. He has a pet theory that they are Stark's personality in a nutshell, actually. Utilitarian-chic, abrasively grey walls, the reflective metal like a mirrored cage bending the angles into the surreal. But underneath it – the unrepentant crazy. In this particular case Stiles approves.

Not that it would matter if he doesn't, of course. Per (very persistent) rumors Tony's Jihad on the Muzak goes back a while, all the way to his first boarding school. Where, judging by the enduring nature of the grudge, the Muzak killed Tony's parents in front of him, in a locked elevator.

Well, whatever.

The upshot is that if you are in a Stark-owned property you get to ride in style, while listening to the best of the Eighties rock.

The downside is that sometimes the elevator refuses to let you out until the song ends.

Jarvis, apparently, has very specific parameters programmed into him.

Again, Stiles approves.

His fellow traveler, on the other hand, does not seem particularly impressed – instead intent on thoughtfully perusing her reflection in the elevator's wall.

"Maybe I should try out the blonde thing again." Allie finally breaks her musing silence. "What do you think?"

Mostly – Oh FUCK! And also – DANGER, STILES ROBINSON, DANGER.

"I think you look perfect just as you are and you don't need to compete with anybody."

Allison gives him a long considering look and the troubling spark of malice dances its way into her eyes. "Perfecter then Pepper?"

The Hunters just aren't nice people. Any of them. That's what it is. Not nice. Low down. Vicious.

"You are both perfect in your own unique way. Like snowflakes."

Or brain-damaged puppies.

That proves too much for her and Allie laughs out loud, patting him on the back. "I'm sorry, I'll stop. You did good. New York got some smoothness on you, huh?"

"I try to scrape it off nightly, but y'know…"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get cute. That was totally the wrong answer. Especially since you are taking me into the nicely secluded basement."

Stiles shrugs disdainfully. "I shan't deny my true nature any more, Ms. Argent. My cuteness and my humility are my greatest flaws. Stop trying to change me, woman!"

He pauses suddenly, and raises a suspicious eyebrow at her, "Er… what does the secluded nature of our destination have to do with anything?"

"Nuthin'."

"Allie…" Stiles drawls warningly and it's her turn to shrug. "Well, I bwas/b going to make out with you in the stacks, but since I am only perfect in…" The heavy sarcasm makes her air quotes positively vibrate, "…my own unique way, I'll just stab you in the face and hide the body down there somewhere."

"You know," Stiles says meditatively, "That joke was a lot funnier before I started hanging out with people who actually do that crazy crap on a daily basis."

"Why do you assume I am joking?" Allie asks interestedly. "I'm a girl, you know. We get all these nutso, hormone fueled urges. No reasoning with us, when we don't feel pretty. Especially when it's that time of the month. I just saw a Clairol commercial this morning that explained it all to me."

"I'm just going to pretend you did not use the phrase 'that time of the month' at me, and go back to that whole make out in the stacks part, kay?"

"Whatever floats your boat, buddy. But the offer is waaaay off the table. Now – just stabnation. Oh man, so much stabnation…"

And the day had started out so well, too.

Of course, most days do when you approach them right. And by 'right,' as far as Stiles is concerned, means 'low bar of expectations.'

Well... no. That's actually only partly true in this particular case.

Yes, Pepper's little crusade to meet Allie is troublingly (although not unexpectedly) effective. That woman takes a truly unhealthy interest in the personal lives of the people around her. And if Coulson couldn't stop her from meddling in that whole Cellist Affair… Well, Stiles is a realist.

But there are several bright sides to the thing.

Stiles has a cunning plan of the Basement

After Pepper meets Allison, she'll get the whole 'not a girlfriend' idea and back off. Or possibly set Stiles up with one of the ridiculously wealthy New York debs, allowing him to finally partake of the life of wealth and debauchery he'd really love to get used to. Possibly with some sort of reality show involved. He should really start working up some catch-phrases…

It's be nice to show the Mansion off to Allie. As the wise Eastern philosopher, Sterling Mallory Archer, had observed: Why be a secret agent intern, if you can't brag about it?

It sort of works out, too. Pepper really seems to approve of Allison, especially after they simultaneously geek out over a Kandinsky original in the foyer. And obviously, judging by the blonde ideas, the approval is mutual.

All his plans are falling into place. So of course, suddenly stabbing enters the picture.

Typical.

"That's one of the things on my bucket list, you know." Stiles sighs, "Right after punching out a zombie. I was so sure I was going to get the whole necking-in-the-library thing crossed off by the time I graduated, too. Never happened."

Nonplussed by the answering silence, he half-turns to catch Allison suddenly very intent on the speck of dust marring her blouse.

"… you did NOT!"

"You don't have to make this big drama out of it! Everybody was doing it in college. Except you, apparently. And it was just a little bit of necking." Allison sniffs. "I didn't like it too much. It seems like a good idea at the time – all edgy and stuff. But it's just uncomfortable and weird. Like nookie in the dorm's bathroom."

Stiles blinks and runs the last sentence through his mental filters again.

Yep, she'd totally just said that.

He definitely did the college thing wrong.

"Damn, Al. That's pretty... skeezy. But also hot."

She sighs again, suddenly melancholy. "That's pretty much my sophomore year in a nutshell, I suppose. Good times." She winces. "Well – good stories, anyway."

"I don't think I want to be talking about this anymore."

"Such a prude."

"Hey, I'm not some filthy French immigrant, like some people in this elevator! I'm a red blooded American. I only do the weird stuff in the privacy of my own bedroom. Or a particularly discrete sex shop."

"Dude, my family has been in the US since before the civil war. And also – if you'd ever seen the inside of a sex shop, your little puritanical head would probably explode."

"Hah! HAH! The joke is on you, missy! Danny totally took me to one of those."

At which point Stiles realizes the very dangerous direction of the conversation. The shop experience was… odd. The transvestites running it decided that Stiles was 'just darling' and when Danny just fucking abandoned him like a filthy traitorous abandoner, wanted to play 'dress up the straight.'

Time to subtly change the topic.

"So, anyway – you remember what we are looking for?"

The corner of Allie's mouth quirks, and she gives him that old, knowing look, but lets him off the hook. "Yeah, yeah, I got it. The question is if this box will ever let us out again. Where the hell are you taking us, the fifth dimension?"

"That's in the 16th floor, we are going to the basement." Stiles tells her seriously and Allison stares back, before snorting. "Almost had me there, not gonna lie."

Stiles doesn't say anything, but the truth is that there's definitely bSomething/b up on the 16th. It's one of those secrets that everybody knows enough not to want to know any more about.

When it comes to Stark there are a lot of those.

As if to underline the thought, Joe Elliott screechingly pleads one last time for his baby to get closer to him and falls silent, allowing the elevator doors to finally hiss open.

"Thank you, Jarvis." Stiles says politely.

"My pleasure, Mr. Stiles." Jarvis replies coolly.

"…!" Allison comments diplomatically.

"We should go," Stiles informs her quickly and makes his escape.

Allie catches up quickly, her mouth already forming a question or an insult, but before she can vocalize it, they are already being met by the security guard.

"What's the rush, kid?"

"Hey, Harry," Stiles grins and dips into his bag. "I brought the stuff!"

The old man's eyes narrow consideringly, adding lines to an already ancient looking face, as he takes in the pair before him and the 12-pack of PBR in Stiles's hands. "15 minutes."

"30." Allison counters without missing a step.

Stiles tried not to gawk at her entry into the deal she knows nothing about and just lets her work.

"15 minutes, and if you start any hanky-panky in there I'm kicking you out."

"30, you never use the words 'hanky-panky' at me again, and we'll bring you jerky next time too."

Harry stares at her briefly and smiles. "I like you. You can stay. 20, and there ain't no next time."

"Deal," Allie smiles back and solemnly spits into her palm. Harry's smile widens as he does the same and the two shake hands.

Stiles queasily fights back the nausea. "You're both disgusting human beings. In what way is that even hygienic? This is a library annex!"

"That's right," Harry squints at him. "So keep it the fuck down. Clock is ticking."

Ten minutes later Stiles swallows noisily, and makes a slight gagging noise. Allie rolled her eyes. "Will you give it up already? Drama llama."

"I have a very tender constitution. And I was brought up right, not in some barn where excreting your bodily fluids is some sort mark of camaraderie."

"Well, then, you've been missing all the fun, haven't you?"

"… probably." Stiles concedes gloomily and turns his attention back to the terminal. To be totally honest he expected this to be a lot easier. Mostly because Rigby, that fucking rat bastard, had told him so.

Which doesn't necessarily mean that Fallon was lying. Just that he, as always, assumes that everybody else also spent their formative years hacking Japanese porn sites and playing hide-and-seek with the NSA.

Still, the theory is sound. The Night Watch Archives are now accessible from the Mansion, and the Annex is still networked in. Pure luck – as far as Stiles can figure out in all the craziness of the recent event they just forgot to take it offline. The access that Rigby was able to claw out for him is pretty limited, but then Stiles is not planning to go spelunking in the data pool. He's done most of his research already, narrowing down the search parameters quite severely.

He was hoping it would take only a few minutes, in fact, but…

"Got it!"

Perfect. Of course she'd be the one to find it. It's not like Stiles spent the last half a decade laying down the groundw—

Up until he heard the sound of heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway, he honestly thought the expression 'blood froze in my veins' was retarded.

Live and learn.

Making a 'we are dead, it's every man for himself!' face at Allie, he drops down flat and tries his best to blend into the carpeting.

Her eyes, huge and terrified, stare daggers back at him from behind a chair.

And she doesn't know the half of it. Only one person makes that much noise walking. They are about to be busted in a restricted area, stealing data from SHIELD by a fucking Norse God.

He should have known.

No day that starts so well, ends in anything but tears.

Fucking typical.

Then Natasha follows Thor though the doors and the situation takes a short step from bad into the indescribably horrific.

She sits, in that seemingly languid easy motion that has the hidden readiness of a compressed spring. Just sinks into the plush chair next to the door and wait.

Thor walks.

He never stops after he strides through the door, just pacing, the blond hair no longer long, hacked into an ugly uneven mess, the cut of mourning and grief. He paces, silent and grim, refusing to look at the Widow, just measuring the room, made small by his presence, with his steps.

She sits and waits, infinitely patient.

"The world," Thor says suddenly, stopping and fixing the faded map on the wall with hooded eyes, "will end in ice and blood. Red snow and stillness, forever."

Natasha doesn't answer, her eyes on the glass pencil cup she twirls absently between her hands.

"It is a strange thing to be born a God who knows that he will end in death and failure. And how. The Wyrd rides all of us. And Loki - he was not bred to this. His shoulders are not broad enough, his back not strong. He is only half-God, you see."

The assassin is still silent, still watching the artificial light refract, break and reform in the industrially produced glass jewel.

"I am terrified of winter," says the God that fell to Earth. "Used to have nightmares about it when I was a child. Loki knew. We'd climb under the covers together and he'd tell me how the cold was a good thing, a friend. It was in his blood and he tried to share that with me. Brothers. It is a thing of strangeness."

She puts the glass on the desk with a soft movement full of the utilitarian grace that defined the century that produced her. No waste, all purpose.

"I used to be Russian, Odinson. I understand cold, and winter, and terror. I understand family and blood." Natasha meets Thor's eyes until he blinks and looks away. "What I don't understand is why you are talking to me. Why you brought me here, away from eyes of all the people who might actually give a damn about the poetic tragedy of it all."

Thor winces as if struck but she never pauses. "You need to stop defending him to me. Explaining. Justifying. All of it. I'm not your ally. I am not the one that will agree with you. I am not the one who will help you save him."

The red hair shimmers and moves as she dips her head toward the door, toward the rest of the mansion, toward the life and laughter out there, streaming past this quiet chilly room. "Any one of them, maybe. But not me. I am an American by adoption, not birth. I lack their... optimism. I am the one who will finish it, if you can't. The haircut is a nice touch. Meaning that you have come to terms with the fact that your brother is a murdering sociopath, I suppose. But it's a lie. And we, you and I, we both know that. He's not dead. He's still a threat. And will remain one until he breathes. And as long as he does it means you haven't come to terms with shit."

She flicks the glass, and watches it fall to floor in, a miniature explosion, and a shadow of contempt flits across her face as she looks down on the bowed blond head next to her. "Therapy and the search of inner goodness is not my brand of poison. We all have our evils to bear, and wounds to lick. I begrudge none their pain, but I am not interested in your excuses. The fact that your brother is a monster is your cross. Grow some balls and fucking deal with it."

Or I will, hangs in the air – unsaid, but clear.

Thor never answers, just straightens heavily and, never looking back, strides out the door, closing it softly behind him.

The Widow watches him, silent, infinitely patient, until the echo of his feet dies away.

"I want you both out of here in 2 minutes. Clean up the glass before you go."

… so, this is what a heart attack feels like. Huh.

Thirty five seconds later Allie scoops the last slivers of glass into waste basket and hisses at him, "Are you coming?!"

"Nah, just breathing hard."

It pops out before he even realizes what he's saying it, and Allison's mouth forms a perfectly indignant oval of silent shock.

Stiles is totally going to pay for it later.

Worth it.


	12. Chapter 12

"It's done, sir."

It's vanishingly rare these days but for just a split second, Fury thinks he can hear a faint echo of an accent as Natasha speaks. Which says everything that needs to be said about the situation. The Director of SHIELD turns away from the window (he refuses to call something bigger than his first apartment a porthole) to look at his agent searchingly. "What's your read?"

He's showing weakness, and he knows it. It was his decision, his operation, and his responsibility. The time to gather input is long past. The game is in play and there's no turning back. But.

Fury holds Widow's gaze, but she just shrugs. "Fifty, fifty."

He'd beaten worse odds. But back then it was him in the field, and he knew why he was there, usually volunteered to be there, in fact.

Because he'd known the score and was willing to pay the price.

Touching his eye-patch briefly, Fury straightened his shoulders, gathering himself, and shaking off the doubts like dry leaves. "Carla!"

His secretary appeared as if by magic, the blue eyes steely. The Director or not, he could feel another lecture about the mysterious workings of intercom, and the importance of not screaming into it, on the horizon.

It was clearly going to be one of *those* days.

"All right, people. It's on. Brace yourselves. You all know what's coming."

Carla blanched, her irritation with him momentarily forgotten. And as both women left his office, Fury was almost positive he saw Black Widow cross herself.

"I just don't trust it." Shannon declared glumly, perched on the edge of table like a somber red-headed gargoyle. "It will all end in tears."

It was just them in the small galley this evening, the Cornflakes.

The nickname started with Stark, as most unpleasant things usually did. Nobody could remember the exact cause anymore, but during onen of his usual hissy fits, and having unexpectedly exhausted his verbal ammunition, the Iron Man turned on Coulson and dramatically pointing at the interns clustering around the Agent declaimed, that he was Tony By God Stark, and he was not going to be manipulated by some jumped up paper pusher with a gun and a creepy as fuck Children of the Corn troupe.

At which point Pepper giggled and said that they were more like Cornflakes.

That was pretty much the end of that.

The moniker spread like wildfire. The rest of the interns (as well as most of the Suits) loved it for two fairly obvious reasons.

It was perfectly clear that the Five (Shannon, Cameron, Stiles and Stanley – everybody was a little iffy on where Rigby fit in, but more and more he was marked as one of them, mostly because Stiles kept asking him for hacking favors) were Coulson's select. Hand-picked, groomed for awesome and terrible futures. Eventually it became obvious even to the Five themselves.

Nobody likes the teacher's pets. The nickname was just the perfect dose of condescending to needle them with.

Secondly, Shannon (predictably) hated it. Driving her into the rage had quickly become a very popular sport on the Helicarrier. Stiles frequently and loudly wondered as to why. There was no real challenge to it – Shannon's temper was not exactly a subtle and deeply hidden thing. And the consequences would always follow. If there's one thing the Cornflakes understood early on and never deviated from – it's the importance of loyalty and retribution.

None of them were very ready or equipped to find themselves to be the popular kids. So they dealt with the attacks on one as an affront to all, and would respond in a considerably more aggressive manner than has perhaps been warranted.

As the understanding has sunk in that getting the dirtiest, most thankless, progressively harder jobs actually meant that they were being singled out in a *good* way, they adjusted and mended some bridges, as best they could.

But first impressions linger. By and large they stuck to themselves; friendly with many but friends with few.

They had their in-jokes (almost an in-language), they had their secrets, their places, and their rules.

And one of the rules was, don't fuck with Shannon when she's on the downward slope.

As the frenetic energy driving the tiny intern would eventually reach its limits and give way to the morose, dark mood of the Bad Shannon. The prognostications of the inevitable doom, fueled by the truly inspiring amounts of black coffee. The thing to do was wait it out. Eventually the energy levels would top off again, and the Good Shannon would reclaim the driving seat.

The recharging periods varied in length, unfortunately. The current one was eating heavily into its fourth day, handily explaining the ease with which the group inherited the galley.

Even full Agents tended to find excuses to skip the Bad Shannon experience. For the Cornflakes that was not an option.

Friendship was a bitch sometimes.

"There's a wrongness on the wind."

Stanley and Cameron exchanged a quick look, and went back to their chess game.

The Truth of life is simple – all things end. Wait it out. Do not engage.

"Why?" Asked Rigby interestedly. "What wrongness?"

Cameron's face didn't change, his impassivity having long since become a SHIELD punchline. Stan sighed heavily and shook his head. Some people just refused to learn.

Shannon's head swiveled like a gun turret, seeking out Rigby who flinched automatically. "Something bad is coming. Soon. And you two—" She pointed imperiously at the chess-playing pair without bothering to look, "—can just shut up. I know what I'm talking about. My grandmother was a Gypsy."

The identity of Shannon's grandmother changed bi-monthly, depending on the topic of a current discussion and the linked need for a measure of genetic authority. Over her tenure at SHIELD that very busy women served as a Gypsy, a CIA agent, a Los Alamos nuclear scientist, an Impressionist painter, and a ninja.

Nobody really asked questions any more.

"Hey," Rigby perked up suddenly, totally oblivious of the danger he was invoking by interrupting Shannon's screed mid-point. "Have you guys seen Stiles? I swear he hasn't been around for like a week now…"

Stanley began to roll his eyes (an almost Pavlovian reflex to Fallon, developed by most people eventually) and then stopped suddenly, his face growing thoughtful.

Cameron's long, slender fingers twitched and drummed out a slow beat on the table.

Shannon's hunch deepened and she gathered her knees closer to her chest. "Badness. On the wind. Bad badness. You watch."

Agent Phil Coulson strode unhurriedly yet briskly through the hallways of the Helicarrier, and people did their utmost to get the fuck out of his way.

The manner of walking was typical of the man who over years carved a very strange place within SHIELD's hierarchy. Originally considered little more than a glorified bureaucrat, Coulson, to the surprise of many (some said including himself), currently found himself in the position of being second only to Fury among the Directorate's leadership cadre, in terms of responsibilities, and the regard from the rank and file.

Much of it stemmed from the fact that Coulson has always tried to be what he saw himself as – a good soldier. His father, an NCO lifer, taught him early the basic quality the separated good soldiers from bad, the officers who deserved respect from those who would climb over their soldiers' bodies to reach the next rank and another medal.

Steadiness.

Jack Coulson himself exemplified that quality, projecting solidity like a small mountain made of flesh (and uniform). Phil had imbibed the advice (and the example) early on and it had become part of his identity long before he had first set foot on the Helicarrier, and (sometimes it felt like) centuries before he found his unflappable mien tested by perpetually adolescent billionaires, cape-clad alcoholics with a mythological pedigree, or mild-mannered scientists with a penchant for rage-fueled mayhem.

SHIELD was the place to test men's souls. It would probe and gauge, test and measure you – always looking for that breaking point.

Sometime a nice cellist asking you out for a date would turn out to be a HYDRA agent. Sometimes you got stabbed by a space deity.

You rolled with the punches and you never, ever let the troops see you sweat.

Phil Coulson did not get angry. He simply got progressively more focused.

And at the moment he was very, very focused.

Uncertainty is the worm in the apple of cohesion – thus spake Jack Coulson's Ultimate Maxim, and in that, as in much else, Phil the son of Coul, found his father to be wise.

And so he walked briskly, but unhurriedly through the halls, letting none see the murderous fury behind his eyes.

It was the measure of the man and his iron self-control that there was nary a sound even as he closed the door to the Director's office behind himself.

It was the measure of his rage that he failed to close it all the way.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't see it, sir?"

Nick Fury sighed and putting aside the folder in his hands, glanced up at his second. "No, I was just hoping it'd take a little longer. You going to sit down, or would you prefer to loom?"

"I'll loom, sir. He is not ready. He's my responsibility. And he's coming back. Now."

Fury's mouth tightened for a second as the Director contained an automatic rebuke. "You forget yourself, Agent."

The silence stretched, as Coulson's posture grew rigid, and he straightened into a parade rest, his eyes fixed on an invisible point about an inch above the Director's head. One would have to be terribly optimistic to interpret that very vivid show of subordination as actual … subordination.

Fury sighed again, and absently rubbed his eye-patch. "Just sit the fuck down, Phil. You are making the place look untidy."

Coulson balked for one long rebellious second and then finally acquiesced.

Fury's pushed the folder at him across the desk. "Here. Enjoy."

"I've read it, sir."

"I know you fucking read it, you sanctimonious pain in my ass! Do you think anything changed in there since then? You got any damn brilliant ideas on how to stop it? On how to find some asshole that's been in hiding since Rogers was still a gleam in his Daddy's eye? Or maybe you don't think that your golden boy is the one that moody bitch was wailing about back then?!" The Director's right hand twitched toward his patch again, but the abortive movement ended before it began.

Some, not many but some, people knew that Fury lost his eye in a Saigon slum. But one could count on the fingers of one hand the people who knew how and why. There were a few, not many but a few, who dared to ask the question. The lucky among them tended to remember for a very long time the expression that could only with great charity be called a smile.

There was only one who had been there when the Allfather of Asgard met the Director of SHIELD. Coulson saw them size each other up, silently, unburdened by the need to challenge or compete, sure of themselves and their purpose.

The matching disharmony of their faces was suddenly stark.

"How?" Fury had asked.

"I was to be the King. I needed wisdom." Odin replied softly. "Good trade."

The Director nodded. "I traded mine for knowledge."

Not long after, in a dingy bar in Queens, Nick Fury told Phil Coulson exactly what knowledge had cost him his left eye and why it had been worth it. Within a week Coulson took a trip to California, to find a boy who was once a dragon.

"We need him in play. It was time. Think of it as the final exam." Fury shrugged. To be perfectly honest, the kid had done most of the work himself. Only a few nudges, administered with Natasha's usual finesse, were needed to shepherd him along.

Coulson sat impassively throughout the tirade, hi gaze laser focused on the Director. When he finally spoke his tone was mild, almost gentle. "I am sorry, sir. I must have missed it. bWhere/b is my intern?"

"… and then Carla noticed me, and I had to execute a rapid tactical retreat." Cameron finished.

The Cornflakes huddled around a beat up table in the food court, projecting an almost tangible do-not-disturb aura around them, as SHIELD went about its day around them.

Cameron's story was digested silently, with concentrated intent and no unnecessary questions. Cam made his report in the usual laconic but fully comprehensive style. There was nothing to ask, only to extrapolate.

Even that wasn't much of a task. There was only one real question.

"How?" Stanley bit off, scowling at the table.

"We can trace his phone, maybe…" Rigby drawled uncertainly.

Shannon shook her head impatiently. "He'd have gone dark. No idea that he's being played. Stiles figures they are going to come looking for him, he'll dump all the tags."

Cameron squinted in tacit agreement, his fingers drumming the same sad melody as always, seemingly the only he knew. "The girl." He said finally.

Stanley's closed his eyes for a second, concentrating on dredging the name out of his memory. "Allison."

Shannon shook her head again, even more irritably, glaring at Rigby whose phone suddenly went off. The geeky hacker made a face back at her, but glanced at the screen frowned and mumbling something, chased out of the cafeteria.

"As I was saying." Shannon returned her glare to the other two, "bIf/b he took her with him, he would make sure to cover the obvious bases for her too. Stiles's had the same training as we did. Maybe more."

Nobody had much to add after that.

"We coming at it the wrong way," Cameron said suddenly, as the day had grown dark outside and the coffee cold in the mugs. "They already know where he is."

"If they dropped him into an op, they have to be keeping track of him…" Stanley thought through the idea with his usual deliberation.

"We are going to need Fallon." Cam continued, his eyes intent with the first, rough idea of a plan.

"You actually think you are going to convince that weasel to hack the Director's files?" Shannon scoffed grimly.

"He probably could have," Rigby informed her snidely, and Shannon turned to give him an unapologetic stare. Fallon's habitual gesture of pushing his glasses up his inordinately long nose just happened to prominently feature his middle finger as he squeezed by the redhead and resumed his seat. "It would have been fun. I keep telling them that they are getting too complacent. Fury's network defenses may have been state of the art, but two years are a long time in my world."

The three Cornflakes glared him in dark unison and he ginned back insouciantly. "But it won't be necessary. I know where Stiles is." He grinned and dropped a print-out on the table with the arrogance of a professional poker player holding the ultimate winning hand.

The Unseelie Court may war with the Seelie throng, the Oni may knife the Tengu at every opportunity, and the Leshiys will always find a way to screw with the Domovoys. Yet in the maelstrom of factional fratricide and comfortably traditional vendettas there has always been one simple constant within the politics of the American Fae, the true north that could unite vast majority of them in a perfect moment of companionship and camaraderie.

Everybody hated Boston Sidhe.

The arrogance of the city's clans was breathtaking even by the exacting standards of the Fair Folk. You were either a scion of the Bostonian cradle of the New World's Sidhe culture, or you were a howling barbarian with nary an idea of how to use a fork.

Everybody hated Boston.

Which, inevitably, made the Yankees the unofficial team of the Fae World.

The Fae being unquestioningly the trendsetters of the Shadow World, their attitudes have long since leaked through coloring the attitudes and prejudices of all the denizens of the underworld existing, killing, and dying just outside the lives of most humans. Especially since it did not take long for even the most tolerant of species to see the basic accuracy of the stereotype. Vampires, witches, godlings, ghosts – and inevitably the werevolves, have long since(and with great enthusiasm) bought stock in the Fairie's uncomplicated and deeply satisfying it its purity hate for their Massachussets cousins.

When the Blood Druid of the Bean Town's Seelie finally figured out a way to break the curse there was a week of mourning (and drinking) across the land. After the hangover finally dissipated there wasn't a goat safe across the continent as the clans, packs and coteries from Vancouver to Orlando began to slaughter sacrificial livestock by the hundreds to return the rightness to the world.

Because seriously - fuck Boston.

"Do you think they are going to be as bad as all that?" Allie asked curiously.

"Probably worse," Stiles replied optimistically, as he offered her a Yankees cap.

"Thanks a lot, sunshine."

"Here to help."

"What?!" Shannon snapped at Stanley and the latter's shaggy head rose slowly to meet her scowl.

"I didn't say anything."

The scowl darkened. "What is it?! Spit it out, already."

Stanley shrugged and glanced at Cam. The quiet young man nodded. "I was thinking it too."

"It's a little convenient." Stanley interjected before Shannon exploded. "Cam just happened to overhear the spat. Rigby getting called into that conference just in time to be handed the very diagnostic that pulled out the data that Stiles had been spelunking in just before he disappeared."

Shannon's voice was soft, almost sibilant, the green eyes suddenly deadly calm and calculating. "The Boss?"

Cam nodded again, wordless but eloquent as always.

Rigby paled, uncharacteristically quiet as he worked through the implications of being a pawn stuck in the middle of the game between Coulson and Fury. "We are still going though, right?" He clarified, the voice thin and a little uncertain.

"Obviously!" Shannon barked at him witheringly and Stanley patted Fallon's shoulder in silent support, as he and Cam trooped past toward the car.

Friendship was a bitch, sometimes.

In his office Coulson's face was a mark of impassivity as he watched the screens.

The Cornflakes were marching off to war.

The war he sent them to.

Of this particular pain his father had also warned him

He watched, the shadows playing over the granite visage, thought of all the things liable to go wrong, of bodies to be broken and souls changed. He watched and was silent and still, his eyes focused, so very focused the screens.


End file.
